Finnair - Further challenges undermine EBIT

Finnair’s Asian strategy will now have to be reviewed

Q1 traffic was robust relative to expectations (the RPK metric was only 2% below our estimate) despite the lag due to slow Asian openings. South Korea opened only in the beginning of Q2, while Japan remains basically closed to foreigners and according to our understanding is unlikely to open before H2. China was previously set to open for H2, however even this conservative schedule may now be in question considering the very strict local virus policies. Asian flight volumes would thus remain subdued even without the closure of Russian airspace. The Siberian flightpath is unlikely to open in the foreseeable future and Finnair is revising its network plans in response to the fact that many Asian routes will not be profitable due to the added costs.

We make some further estimate cuts

Finnair is in the process of leasing out some of its resources which it cannot itself deploy under the circumstances. In our opinion some such deals, either leases or sales, seem inevitable given the scale of the problem as the Asian flights made more than 50% of Finnair’s pre-pandemic revenue. We cut our top line estimates by some 10% at this point; in the long-term Finnair may be able to employ some of its current idle capacity on new European and North American routes, but there may still be need for additional revenue estimate cuts. We revise our FY ’22 EBIT estimate to EUR -220m (prev. EUR -82m) and that for FY ’23 down to EUR 47m (prev. EUR 171m). Costs remain yet another issue as jet fuel prices have continued to surge to new records.

Profitability potential remains highly uncertain for now

Finnair had EUR 1.7bn in cash at the end of last year; the financial position and potential additional measures, be they leases or outright sales of aircraft, should help the company manage through the extraordinary period of challenge. Finnair was valued, before the war, in line with other carriers on FY ’23 estimates. It’s now very hard to say how Finnair’s next year will be like. Finnair is valued roughly 15x EV/EBIT on our FY ’24 estimates, but this still doesn’t seem like an attractive level. Our new TP is EUR 0.43 (0.60), and our rating is now SELL (HOLD).