Avianca and Gol parent’s losses widened in the April-June period as its fuel bill rose 80%.
Abra Group will focus on preserving liquidity and pushing fares up as it continues to navigate a “challenging” environment that led to widening losses in the second quarter.
The parent company of Avianca, Gol and Wamos Air saw its second-quarter operating loss widen to $365 million from $47 million in the same period last year, while net loss grew to $766 million from $178 million.
Revenue at the group during the period was up 17.7% year-on-year, at $2.6 billion, but this growth was overshadowed by an almost one-third rise in operating costs. This included an 80% increase in fuel costs – just under half of which was recaptured through measures such as higher fares.
Abra says it remains on track to achieve an average pass-through rate of 60% for the 10-month period from March to December.
Speaking on a second-quarter earnings call on 21 August, Abra chief executive Adrian Neuhauser said the three-month period ending 30 June was hit not just by increased fuel costs, but also currencies “moving against us” and the fact that it was a seasonally weak quarter for the group.
Abra will continue to invest in its premium products, where it is seeing strong demand, and will focus on “pushing fares up” to recapture fuel costs.
“We’ve seen a good market reaction to that,” says Neuhauser. Abra’s premium revenue increased by 69% year-on-year in the second quarter, which it says represents 28% of passenger revenue.
Normalisation of wet-lease market
Revenue at Abra’s Wamos Air unit, meanwhile, fell 5.8% in the second quarter to $91 million, which the company says reflects “the normalisation of the wet-lease market” after an “exceptional year” in 2025 when it benefitted from “a world of widebody scarcity”.
“We’re going back to a world where people are trying to find a new normal – people don’t like ACMI flying being a core part of their business,” says Abra Group chief financial officer Manuel Irarrazaval, although he notes that Wamos Air “has created a unique niche as a premium ACMI provider to brands that are sensitive to the quality of their business”.
Neuhauser emphasises that “we’re not seeing a normalisation in the availability of widebodies” yet, so he still expects Wamos air to perform well going forward.
Capacity from the Spanish wet-lease specialist has also “enabled the acceleration of the launch of Gol’s widebody strategy”, says Abra Group.
Wamos Air is operating Gol’s first major international route – Rio de Janeiro to New York JFK – which launched earlier this year, until the Brazilian carrier takes delivery of the first of its five incoming Airbus A330neos. Gol has traditionally been an all-Boeing 737 narrowbody operator.
At Abra Group’s other units, Avianca and Gol reduced their planned second-quarter capacity by 1% and 5%, respectively, following the outbreak of war in Iran. During the quarter, the group as a whole increased available seat kilometres by 6.5%. Passenger numbers were up 4.3% and load factor fell slightly to 79.7%.
Avianca’s revenue increased by 14.8% in the second quarter but it posted an operating loss of $137 million, down from an operating profit of $141 million a year earlier. At Gol, revenues were up 22.3% and its operating loss widened from $185 million to $244 million.
Cautious approach to E2 deployment
Abra Group is taking a “cautious” approach to deciding which routes to deploy its incoming Embraer 195-E2s on, after placing an order for 20 of the type at the Farnborough air show in July.
“We’re going to be thoughtful and use [the E195-E2s] in places where the gauge provides improvements to us in terms of yields,” says Neuhauser.
The group ended the period with a fleet of 310 aircraft – 264 narrowbodies, 28 widebodies and 18 freighters – which is an increase of 8.4% compared with the same time last year.
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