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Flight Centre cites “solid rebound” for improved forecast

Flight Centre Travel Group is expecting to report an underlying loss of about $185 million for the 2021/22 financial year, which it says is a "material improvement" on the pandemic-impacted prior 12 month result which was a loss of $338 million.

THE company said its preliminary results indicated a return to monthly underlying EBITDA profitability. “The scale of our recovery exceeded our initial expectations,” said MD Graham Turner, with a breakeven figure for the six months to 30 June described as a “major turnaround”.

“There will inevitably be ongoing challenges for the industry over the next six to twelve months as new strains of the virus emerge, airline capacity returns and as we rebuild staff numbers to required levels, but we feel that we are well-placed to overcome these concerns given our corporate business’s continued rise and our leisure business’s ongoing strength,” Turner enthused.

He cited strong market share gains within the FCM and Corporate Traveller businesses, as well as the pending launch of Flight Centre’s new omni-channel offering within its leisure stores “which will allow customers to move seamlessly between sales channels for the first time”.

TTV for the 12 month period exceeded $10 billion, more than 2.5 times the $3.95 billion result for the prior financial year. This was fuelled by both an uplift in demand and the higher than normal ticket prices linked to a lack of airline capacity, particularly on international routes.

Flight Centre will report its formal audited full year accounts on 25 August.

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