QF group lose big

Day two of Australasian Aviation financial announcements saw Qantas announce a record $2.843 billion ($AUD) full year loss.

Qantas has reported a lower than expected full-year underlying loss before tax of $646 million, but booked a statutory loss of $2.8 billion as a result of hefty restructuring charges and writedowns to its fleet.

One of the most notable hits was the historic write down of the international fleet at $2.6b most notably due to an exchange rate of around $0.68 AUD-USD at time of purchase.

Qantas domestic had an underlying profit of just $30m for FY14 down from $365m in FY13, however Qantas International saw the biggest hit with an underlying loss of $497m compared with $246m in FY13

Jetstar had an underlying loss but I will focus on this in a separate post.

Qantas Freight made an underlying profit of $24m down from $36m in FY13, however Qantas Loyalty had the best result with an underlying profit of $286m up from $260m in FY13.

The Qantas Group expects to return to an underlying profit before tax in the first half of FY15 based on the following expectations:

• A target of $300m of Qantas Transformation benefits to be realised in the first half

• A stabilising operating environment, as market capacity growth subsides

• First half fuel costs in line with the first half of FY14

• The repeal of the carbon tax

• Reduced depreciation costs compared with the first half of FY14 

Fleet Changes

There are some interesting changes to the QF fleet coming out of this announcement.

QFi
- Gradual replacement of B747s with A330s on Australia to Asia routes including all SYD/BNE-SIN by Sept 2014
- Early retirement of 4x B747 with the remainder of the non-reconfigured B747s to leave by early 2016
- Push back the options on 50x B787 from 2016 into 2017
- Defer the delivery of the final 8x A380(previously announced)
- Defer the final 3 B787-8 deliveries for JQ (previously announced)

QFd - including QantasLink, Network Aviation, Jetstar and Jetconnect
- reduce turn time for domestic aircraft to improve utilisation
- refurbishment of B737-800 fleet to be completed by mid 2015, provides a total 3% capacity increase
- Early retirement of B767 fleet, to be gone by end of 2014!
- Retirement of Network Aviations fleet of Embraer Brasillia EMB120 effective immediately
- Retire 2x B738 due to increased utilisation, 1 to come from domestic 1 to come from Jetconnect
- Not renew lease on 2x A330-200s which will leave the fleet in early 2016
- 5x A320s ordered for Jetstar have been sold
- 2x QantasLink Q300 will be sold during FY15
- defer order for 21x A320 for Jetstar by 4 years and convert into order for 21x A320neo


Read all of the announcements to the ASX, including the media release, the CEO's address, the Investor presentation and the Fleet Update HERE