Turkish Airlines lost $614 mln in first 9 months of 2020: report

Turkey’s national flag carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) recorded a net loss of TL 5.2 billion ($614 million) during the first nine months of 2020 due to the Turkish currency hitting record lows against the US dollar as well as a reflection in the numbers of the coronavirus pandemic, the Sözcü daily reported on Thursday.

Dropping for a ninth straight day to as low as 8.5376 to the dollar, Turkey’s lira saw fresh record lows this week, following the central bank’s decision not to raise interest rates in late October.

THY saw a loss of TL 4.3 billion ($508 million) due to financing costs affected by the decline in the Turkish lira’s value against the US dollar, Sözcü said, citing data submitted to the country’s Public Disclosure Platform (KAP).

The carrier, over 49 percent of whose shares belong to the Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF), a sovereign wealth fund established by the Turkish government in August 2016, posted a net profit of more than TL 2.5 billion ($296 million) in the first nine months of 2019.

While the company announced TL 3.7 billion ($437 million) in net profit in the August-September period of 2019, it recorded a loss of TL 946 million ($111 million) in the third quarter of 2020.

Financing costs of THY during the same period were at TL 2.5 billion ($295 million).

The national carrier, which had debt of more than TL 106 million ($12.5 million) at the end of 2019, had debt exceeding TL 147 billion ($17.4 million), a substantial amount of it being foreign currency debt, at the end of September 2020.

THY saw a decrease of 61.7 percent in the number of passengers carried during the January-September period of 2020 compared to the same period last year. The company carried 21.6 million passengers in the first nine months of 2020, while it carried 56.4 million in the same period of 2019.