Atlas Air reports strong increase in revenue in first quarter 2018

May 04, 2018: The first quarter saw Atlas Air’s revenue increase by 24 percent to $590 million and net income totaled $9.6 million. During the quarter, operating income for the aircraft lessor increased 68.8 percent to $40.6 million.

With these strong first quarter results, the company has an upwardly revised outlook for full-year 2018 growth in revenue, adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA.

“Our volumes and revenue grew by more than 20 percent in the first quarter, and our reported income, adjusted income and adjusted EBITDA rose even more sharply,” said William J Flynn, president and chief executive officer.

“Our focus on express, e-commerce and fast-growing global markets has broadened our customer base and fleet. We are growing across all of our fleet types. We are operating in a strong airfreight environment and growing global economy.

“Our recent placement of a second 747-400 ACMI freighter with DHL Global Forwarding (DGF), the world’s largest airfreight forwarding company, underscores how well-positioned we are to capitalize on market dynamics to serve our customers. This second aircraft for DGF adds further controlled capacity on growing trade lanes where it expects demand volumes to continue to exceed capacity.

“With the demand we are seeing for our aircraft and services, we now expect our revenue to exceed $2.5 billion in 2018.”

Volumes in the first quarter of 2018 increased 21 percent to 66,495 block hours.

Atlas’ ACMI segment first quarter revenue stood at $266,380 million. Block hours grew 28 percent during the period, reflecting increased 767 flying for Amazon, the start-up of 747-400 flying for several new customers, and the redeployment of 747-8F aircraft from the Charter segment to ACMI. The increase in the average rate during the quarter primarily reflected the impact of new 747-400F and 747-8F flying.

While, the charter segment saw revenues increase by 16.9 percent compared to the same period last year. The reasons cited for the increase in revenue from this segment are increase in yields and higher aircraft utilisation, partially offset by the redeployment of 747-8 aircraft to the ACMI segment.

In dry leasing, higher segment contribution primarily reflected the placement of additional 767-300 converted freighter aircraft and the placement of a 777-200 freighter in February 2018.

Talking about the outlook for 2018, the company said: “With solid demand from our customers for our aircraft and services, and with the essential building blocks our strategic initiatives have set in place, we see opportunities to grow with existing customers and to add new ones.”