Air Canada beats profit estimates, sees higher costs

Air Canada beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit on Friday, helped by more high-paying passengers, but the carrier forecast higher costs for 2019.

Canada’s largest airline said it is focused on improving margins while growing capacity on key domestic and international routes amid stiff competition from rival WestJet Airlines.

Transatlantic flights were the carrier’s best performing market during the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, chief commercial officer Lucie Guillemette told analysts.

“Despite all of the backdrop of the noise that we hear about fears of a recession and the trade wars and the rest of it, we do see a fairly strong and bullish market,” chief executive Calin Rovinescu said.

But rising customer service expenses, stemming from this year’s expected introduction of a new Canadian passengers’ bill of rights called C49, risk eating into the company’s profits in 2019.

Montreal-based Air Canada said it expects full-year 2019 adjusted CASM, or cost per available seat mile, to increase between two and three per cent, compared with 2018, due to the new rules. Canada wants airlines to compensate passengers for lengthy delays.

Rising competition and volatile fuel prices led to about $1 billion in extra costs in 2018 compared with 2017. In the fourth quarter, its yield — a key industry metric — rose 3.4 per cent, while revenue passenger mile rose about 7.2 per cent.

Air Canada reported a loss of $231 million, or 85 cents per share, in the quarter, compared with a profit of $8 million, or two cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, the company earned 20 cents per share, beating the average analyst estimate of 15 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Air Canada’s operating revenue rose to $4.25 billion from $3.82 billion.