The main European air carriers doubled their profits during 2023. This is what emerges from the analysis of the financial statements of four major players in the sector: the German Lufthansa Group, the French-Dutch Air France-KLM, the Irish low-cost Ryanair, the European International Airlines Group (IAG) which controls various airlines: the Irish Aer Lingus, the English British Airways, the Spanish Iberia and Vueling.

It was reported by an analysis by Italian newspaper "Sole 24 Ore". These four airlines recorded revenues of 106.16 billion euros in 2023, marking an increase of +18.9% (16.87 billion), while aggregate net profits rose by +110% (7.45 billion). The best results were achieved by IAG with revenues of 29.45 billion (+27.6%), operating profit of 3.51 billion (+174%) and a net profit more than quadrupled to 2.655 billion. Lufthansa also did well, obtaining the third best result in history (+15% in revenues; +76% in operating profit; +112% in net profit).

This is a really interesting trend, considering that the volume of international traffic is still below pre-pandemic levels, marking -4.3% compared to 2019, while domestic traffic increased by +6.7% compared to January five years ago.

However, in the first month of 2024, global travel demand increased by +16.6% compared to the same period in 2023, and European demand by +10%. A trend that confirms the good performance recorded in the final months of last year. For this reason, the association of European airlines Airlines for Europe (A4E) predicts that in the summer of 2024 traffic in Europe will be 96% compared to 2019 levels.