EANS-News: Air Berlin PLC / A positive start to 2012 for airberlin

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Financial Figures/Balance Sheet/3-months report/Q1 figures 2012

Subtitle: • According to CEO Hartmut Mehdorn: Efficiency programme
“Shape & Size” is clearly producing results • Higher sales figures,
greater utilisation of capacity, improved net result • Better figures
despite fuel surcharges and increase in aviation tax

Berlin (euro adhoc) - Germany's second largest airline can draw
positive conclusions from its first quarter of 2012. On presenting
airberlin's interim report, CEO Hartmut Mehdorn announced: "Although
it's too early to celebrate, we can clearly see our Shape & Size
programme beginning to produce results - we're starting to step up
our efficiency and reap the benefit of lower costs ahead of our
competition. And as a result, nearly all the indicators of
significance for our business are pointing in the right direction."

Despite systematically reducing capacity by 10.5%, it has been
possible to increase sales figures in the traditionally hardest
quarter for the German airline industry by 4% to 812.9 million euros
(781.6 million euros) compared with the same quarter of the previous
year. Capacity utilisation went up by 3.9 percentage points to 76.4%
(72.5%). These are the best results recorded for the first quarter
since airberlin was listed on the stock exchange. Yield (income per
passenger) rose by 7.3% to 109.8 euros (102.4 euros). EBITDAR
(Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortisation and
Rent) improved by 128% to 7.2 million euros (-25.7 euros), EBIT
(Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) went up 20.7% to -149.3 million
euros ( 188.3 million euros), and net loss went down by 14.6% to
-102.9 million euros (-120.6 million euros).

"Although costs for fuel have gone up to 35.2 million euros and for
aviation tax to 4.2 million euros, we've managed to improve EBIT by
nearly 40 million euros", announced airberlin CFO Ulf Hüttmeyer. The
following conclusions can clearly be drawn from this: Everyone in the
company has understood that our efficiency programme is the number
one task for management. Despite systematically reducing capacity by
more than 10%, passenger numbers have only gone down by 5.8% to 6.5
million. As Hüttmeyer explains: "Our results show that the number of
passengers on its own bears almost no relevance to profitability -
it's much more important to ensure that capacity on our aircraft is
fully utilised."

Mehdorn again called for aviation tax to be abolished: "It puts
German airlines at an unfair disadvantage in an international arena
that is already difficult."

airberlin is Germany's second largest airline. The company has a
workforce of 9,200 employees. Each year, airberlin receives over 10
awards for service and quality. The fleet comprises 170 aircraft with
an average age of five years, making it one of the most modern fleets
in Europe. The airline's state-of-the-art jets are highly fuel
efficient, which contributes toward a long-term reduction in
pollution emissions from aircraft. As one of the major European
airlines, airberlin flies to 162 destinations in 40 countries. In
2011, over 35 million passengers were transported. In December 2011,
airberlin entered into a strategic partnership with Etihad Airways.
Since 20th March 2012, airberlin has been a full member of the global
airline alliance oneworld®. airberlin operates codeshare flights with
oneworld members American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia,
Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines and Japan Airlines.

Further inquiry note:
Uwe Berlinghoff
Senior Vice President Communications
phone: + 49 30 3434 1500
fax: + 49 30 3434 1509
email: abpresse@airberlin.com

end of announcement euro adhoc
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company: Air Berlin PLC
The Hour House, High Street 32
UK-WD3 1ER Rickmansworth, Herts
phone: +49 (0)30 3434 1500
FAX: +49 (0)30/3434-1509
mail: abpresse@airberlin.com
WWW: http://www.airberlin.com
sector: Air Transport
ISIN: GB00B128C026
indexes: SDAX, Classic All Share, Prime All Share
stockmarkets: free trade: Berlin, München, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart,
regulated dealing/prime standard: Frankfurt
language: English