The first quarter results just announced for 2015 show no great signs of improvement. A loss of 210 million euros for the first three months is more or less identical to last year. The loss for the 12 months to the end of March has actually increased from -329 to -378 million euros.
Interesting that despite a much trumpeted improvement program, overall costs (€970m vs 948) increased against slightly increased revenue (€794m vs 762). Some tidbits: number of aircraft increased from 143 to 150 (leasing costs of 135 versus 128 million last year). Personnel costs rose from 126 to 142 million euros. Fuel cost decreased only 6% due to unfortunate hedging.
None of this can be blamed on the new man Pichler, who despite a mixed reputation is clearly highly experienced. But there has been something of a revolving door since Hunold. He has also said that no more money can be expected from the middle east and that trading in the second quarter is not much different.
The sad thing is that Air Berlin has a pretty good product and at least as far as the pilots are concerned reasonable conditions, not least due to the stellar work of the union. In light of the very good results from Easyjet, Ryanair and a lot of others it is hard to see much upside. Improvement is always just round the corner, but never seems to get any closer.
How long can they keep this up? The only thing I can think of is their hedging running out and the fuel price reduction eventually reaching the bottom line. But the way things have been going recently even that seems optimistic.