Reuters: Hot Stocks: UPDATE 1-Norwegian Air beats all expectations in Q1

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Norwegian Air beats all expectations in Q1 Apr 18th 2013, 07:22 Thu Apr 18, 2013 3:22am EDT * EBIT NOK 69 mln vs forecasts for 65 mln loss * Unit cost 0.47 NOK vs 0.50 year ago * Shares jump 7.2 pct, hit highest since early March (Adds detail, shares) OSLO, April 18 (Reuters) - Budget airline Norwegian Air Shuttle beat expectations with strong first-quarter earnings on Thursday as it grabbed market share and grew its fleet even as it reduced costs. Its shares were up 7.2 percent at 236 crowns by 0717 GMT, ahead of the broader Oslo market's 0.3 percent rise. The stock rose as high as 237.5 crowns, its highest since early March. Norwegian, which is expanding around northern Europe at the expense of established carriers such as SAS, swung to a 69 million crown ($11.9 million) operating profit in the first quarter from a 575 million loss a year ago. That compared with an average analyst forecast for a 65 million crown loss. The company placed Europe's biggest-ever aircraft order last year when it ordered 222 short-haul jets from Boeing and Airbus, betting on rapid growth in the relatively healthy and fast-growing economies of the Nordics. Its cost per seat kilometre in the first quarter, traditionally the weakest period for the airline industry, fell to 0.47 crowns from 0.50 a year ago, putting it on track to meet its full-year guidance of between 0.42 and 0.43. Available seat kilometres, which reflects the airline's capacity, will grow by over 25 percent this year as it gets 14 new narrow body jets and starts long haul operations to both North America and Asia. First-quarter numbers came ahead of forecasts as revenue grew faster than predicted, costs were lower and it did a better job turning around last year's fuel hedging loss into a gain. Norwegian added that only 4 percent of its 2013 fuel exposure was hedged, indicating a recent oil price drop would continue to benefit the company. ($1 = 5.7933 Norwegian krones) (Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by David Holmes) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions