STA, 8 October 2019 - Adria Airways, a German-owned Slovenian airline in receivership since last week, ended 2018 with a net loss of EUR 18.6 million, up from EUR 5.4 million in 2017, shows the audited financial statement, which was released on Monday.
The air carrier's operating loss amounted to over EUR 16 million, up from EUR 3.3 million in 2017, with its negative working capital standing at EUR 14.2 million.
The airline's revenue, on the other hand, increased by 12.5% to EUR 179 million, of which the revenue from passengers rose by 1.5% to EUR 149 million.
By leasing its planes and flight crews to other airlines, Adria generated more than EUR 17 million in 2018, says the business report, which official receiver Janez Pustatičnik posted on the website of the AJPES agency yesterday.
The company attributed the loss to growing fuel prices (EUR 7.7 million) and to the cost of hiring planes with flight crews (EUR 5.5 million).
And while Adria carried 1.23 million passengers in 2018, up 1.5%, its occupancy seat rate dropped by 3.7 percentage points to 64%.
The financial statement also shows the company had 503 employees at the end of last year, a rise of almost 27% over the year before.
The auditor PwC gave the financial statement a qualified opinion because of Adria's manoeuvre with selling its brand in 2016 and then acquiring it back in 2018.
The auditor said Adria had actually never really lost control of its brand, so its sale was in fact presented in its books inappropriately.
The financial statement, which Adria had failed to release within the set deadline, was supposed to serve as the basis for Slovenia's Civil Aviation Agency to decide on whether the airline should keep its operating licence.
However, before the expiration of the deadline to submit it to the agency, Adria filed for receivership on 30 September, thus automatically losing the operating licence.
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