Profitability Archives

LATAM: From Chapter 11 to Record Profitability [ABO]

October 15, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

Davide Ioppolo, directeur commercial de LATAM Airlines pour le Royaume-Uni, la France, l'Allemagne et l'Italie. Photo : C.Hardin

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Things had a very rough start back in 2020 when Roberto Alvo, the new LATAM CEO, the leading South American carrier born from the merger of Chilean LAN Chile and Brazilian TAM, took the helm.

Two months later, the company had to file for Chapter 11 protection under the U.S. bankruptcy code.

Due to the pandemic, traffic collapsed with aircraft grounded and borders closed. Six years on, in July last year, Roberto Alvo was elected “Executive Leadership” for the Latin America and Caribbean region in London, at the Airline Strategy Awards ceremony.

Furthermore, at the moment we were handing the microphone to Davide Ioppolo at the IFTM fair on September 16, Roberto Alvo was honored with the BRAVO CEO of the Year 2026 award, a distinction awarded by the Council of the Americas (COA) as part of the 31st edition of the BRAVO Business Awards.

The prize will be presented to him on November 19 in Miami, United States. These honors celebrate the LATAM CEO’s actions over the past six years, during which he steered the airline to profitability returning, reduced debts, a modernized fleet, and strengthened strategic partnerships, notably with Delta, which became a shareholder.

As of this September, LATAM has once again become the leading airline group in Latin America with very strong growth in Brazil, Chile and Peru.

Massive product investments: in 2027 LATAM will offer a Premium Economy

TourMaG – LATAM is currently in good shape, with very solid results.

Davide Ioppolo : Yes, we closed 2025 with 87 million passengers carried and net income about 50% higher than the previous year.

So it has been a spectacular year. And looking at 2026, it was almost the same. In the first quarter, we posted record revenue and profitability.

For the first six months, results were positive. The situation remains healthy, but we saw the second quarter hit results hard.

We remain with positive results, but not as strong as in the first quarter. And this is, of course, due to higher fuel prices.

TourMaG – Your profits have allowed you to invest more than $400 million in new cabins. What will be new on board?

Davide Ioppolo : We are indeed investing heavily in our cabins. We had already invested $360 million in business cabins, and we will have business suites with a door providing better privacy.

We will continue to make strong investments, not only in cabins but overall, and in the premium segments. They’re the ones that can best absorb price increases.

For example, we renovated our São Paulo lounge. We are doing the same in Lima and in Santiago de Chile. And for the first time in LATAM’s history, in 2027, we will have Premium Economy, because we are seeing very strong growth in this segment.

Investments also to outfit aircraft with Wi‑Fi. Currently, nearly our entire domestic fleet is Wi‑Fi equipped and we are starting to outfit long-haul aircraft.

Travel agencies are LATAM’s primary sales channel

TourMaG – Is the Europe–South America flow currently very dynamic?

Davide Ioppolo : Absolutely, South America is even more on European corporate agendas since the Mercosur agreement was signed, and that’s why we want to keep delivering an even better service.

We are currently seeing many Italian and French companies investing in South America, acquiring Brazilian, Chilean, and Peruvian companies. We observe this phenomenon and want to be there to capture the demand.

TourMaG – Besides the cabins, you have also invested to improve the quality of the relationship between the airline and travel agents, the sellers, through a program: Global Sales Support.

Davide Ioppolo : Yes indeed, and the idea is to offer them facilities to sell LATAM. I first want to reiterate the importance of travel agencies for us. They are the primary sales and distribution channel.

Two important points also tied to the French market that really please me.

This year we have seen airline revenues rise, often due to price increases.

What we have observed in France is also a source of satisfaction. If we look only at travel agencies and tour operators, excluding direct sales and Online Travel Agencies, we see, for example on a key axis for us, the France–Brazil axis, a very strong growth, and it’s not just a growth in the average fare, it’s an increase in passenger volume.

If we zoom in on the summer season, the same pattern appears on the France–Peru axis.

And returning to our Global Sales Support, these solid results are also due to this program that provides excellent support for travel agencies with a charter on our website dedicated to them.

To ensure an immediate response with real people and also with artificial intelligence.

Regarding the AI we launched a month ago, the early feedback has been very positive. And in any case, there will always be a person available to help solve problems. I am particularly pleased with this implementation for the French market; it was and remains one of my main objectives.

TourMaG – Far from the French market, but with the French, you have developed a collaboration with the cruise line “Ponant” to operate flights between Chile and Argentina. Could this become a regular arrangement?

Davide Ioppolo : I can’t share public information, but I can say that we have been working together for several years. We are good partners, I believe, and there’s no reason not to run more operations with this major company that Ponant is.

And what gave me pleasure is that for these flights to Antarctica, we reached an agreement to use SAF. Sustainability is important at LATAM and it isn’t easy for us because most SAF is produced in Europe and the United States.

It is still a very expensive fuel and in South America, unfortunately, we do not have large-scale SAF production.

TourMaG – So a particular effort then?

Davide Ioppolo : Yes, but also shared with Ponant. We appreciated it.

LATAM: a domestic network that is expanding and gaining agility

TourMaG – To return to the dynamic French market, will there be any new developments?

Davide Ioppolo : We don’t have true new offerings per se, but we have opened new destinations that could interest the French market.

We opened Amsterdam in April, Brussels in June. The Hauts-de-France region and the Benelux are very important for LATAM.

We held workshops in Lille and all travel agencies were of course interested.

I’d also like to add, on the novelty side, what we are doing in South America. New destinations we will open or have already opened.

The idea is to offer the largest possible domestic and regional network. To this end, we signed an order with the Embraer aircraft manufacturer that will supply smaller airplanes with capacities of 150 or even 100 seats.

We will operate from São Paulo, Brasilia, Curitiba, Porto Alegre. We will build an even stronger mesh, offering the largest possible domestic network.

We operate almost 60 destinations in Brazil and over the next two years we will reach nearly 100 destinations in Brazil.

And this will be possible thanks to these well-adapted modules that will also allow us to optimize frequencies, by scheduling a flight in the morning and one in the evening. More agility therefore, and this is also very interesting for the French market.

*This opening to Amsterdam along with the strengthened partnership with Delta reinforces the idea that LATAM, which left the OneWorld alliance, could join SkyTeam

TAP Air Portugal: Revenue Up, Profitability Down

September 14, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

TAP Air Portugal a enregistré une croissance de son activité au premier semestre 2026 - Depositphotos.com @VanderWolf Images

MSC Croisières

In the first half of 2026, TAP Air Portugal generated €2.04 billion of operating revenues, compared with €1.96 billion in the same period in 2025, a rise of 4.3%.

This growth is chiefly driven by passenger activity. Revenues from passenger transport reached €1.83 billion, up 4.4% year over year.

The airline attributes this evolution to a 1.7% increase in capacity and a 2.7% growth in passenger revenue per available seat kilometer (PRASK).

Revenue growth was accompanied by an uptick in traffic. TAP carried 8.2 million passengers from January to June, i.e., 4.2% more than in the first half of 2025.

Traffic, measured in RPK, rose by 5.9%, higher than capacity (+1.7%). As a consequence, the load factor improved by 3.4 percentage points to reach 85.4%. The airline operated 57,500 flights over the period, a slight year-on-year increase of 0.3%.

Rising fuel costs weigh on the accounts

Despite this commercial momentum, TAP struggles to translate growth into profit. Recurring operating costs rose by 9.6%, to €2.12 billion.

The main driver of this rise remains fuel. The aviation fuel bill rose by €89.4 million (+18.7%) over the first six months of the year.

Personnel expenses also advanced by 7.5%, to €519.3 million, while depreciation and amortization increased by 9.8%, notably linked to fleet investments.

This cost inflation translates into a clear deterioration of profitability indicators. The recurring operating result (EBIT) stood at €-83.7 million, versus €+17.3 million a year earlier.

The recurring EBITDA reached €181.9 million, down 29.8% year over year.

A net loss of €99.2 million

In terms of net income, TAP therefore posted a loss of €99.2 million in the first half of 2026, compared with a loss of €70.7 million a year earlier.

The deterioration amounts to €28.5 million year on year. TAP notes that the result was helped, notably, by a positive foreign exchange gain of €34.2 million over the period.

The second quarter particularly illustrates this earnings pressure. With €1.125 billion in revenue, quarterly revenue remained virtually flat (-0.6%), while recurring operating costs rose by 17.9%.

Fuel costs surged by 52.3% in the quarter, i.e., an additional €127.1 million versus Q2 2025. The quarter therefore ended with a net loss of €59.3 million, compared with a profit of €37.5 million a year earlier.

A strengthened cash position

Nevertheless, TAP highlights the strengthening of its financial position. As of 30 June 2026, the company held €1.22 billion in cash, i.e., €456.7 million more than at the end of 2025.

This improvement comes notably after the issue of €350 million in senior notes in the second quarter. According to TAP, this operation boosted liquidity, diversified its funding sources, and lengthened the maturity of its debt.

Net financial debt stood at €787.1 million as of 30 June, down slightly by 2.1% versus 31 December 2025.

TAP continues its development strategy

Operationally, TAP continues the fleet renewal. It had 101 aircraft in service as of 30 June 2026, two more than in the previous quarter.

The airline notes that 72% of its medium- and long-haul fleet is now comprised of aircraft from the NEO family, up from 71% a year earlier. TAP has also relaunched several seasonal routes from Lisbon to Ibiza, Alicante, Palma de Mallorca and Menorca, as well as a seasonal link to San Francisco via Terceira.

For the remainder of the fiscal year, TAP reports solid booking momentum and favorable prospects for unit revenues.

The airline remains cautious regarding fuel price volatility, geopolitical developments, and the macroeconomic context. It plans to continue its revenue-management actions, its fuel-hedging policy, and cost-control measures to limit the impact of these factors.

TAP has also adopted a new strategic plan for the period 2026-2035, focused in particular on expanding long-haul, differentiating its offering, and creating new revenue sources.

GreenGo in the City: A Quest for Fame and Profitability

June 15, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

GreenGo vise la rentabilité en 2027 - Crédit photo : Joga

Top of Travel

After a record-breaking year in 2025, GreenGo has no intention of resting on its laurels.

During the previous financial year, the startup recorded 70,000 travelers, for over 200,000 overnight stays, marking a 100% growth. 2026, while more challenging due to the Middle East conflict and a cautious mood among the French, appears to continue on this trajectory.

Growth at any cost is no longer the standard, as GreenGo has chosen the path of “profitable growth”, in order to present a positive financial statement as early as 2027.

“Our booking volumes are beginning to look promising, as in 2026 we should cross the €15 million mark, then exceed €20-25 million in 2027.

It’s really exciting, but it requires a lot of work. It’s tough, but there are numbers that don’t lie.

We currently have an average rating of 4.87 out of 5, so we’re hitting the mark. And happy customers come back, which is cheaper than running marketing campaigns“, shares Guillaume Jouffre.

And yet, for the first time in its history, GreenGo will step off the screens to become visible in France’s largest cities, in an unexpected format.

GreenGo: “We have a brand-awareness challenge”

Since May 21, 2026, the startup has been appearing in major cities across France.

Wanting to establish itself as an alternative to American platforms and market giants, GreenGo decided to run a disruptive outdoor advertising campaign, aiming to dispel the myth of long-haul travel.

The visuals feature French locations, well-known or not, that closely resemble famous tourist sites around the world, with short phrases intended to catch the eye of pedestrians, drivers, or cyclists, such as: “This is like Canada, with eight hours less of flying” or “There’s a Cyclades vibe, but without the people.”

A large-scale marketing campaign for a company of around twenty people, going against the grain of a digital-native firm, since it is deployed on billboards and at bus shelters.

“This is a major action for us at our scale, allowing us to be visible in hundreds of places in cities like Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, etc. We must acknowledge that this is our first awareness campaign. Our starting premise is simple: we see that GreenGo resonates with people, that individuals identify with the idea of traveling better. When they know us and try us, they come back“, explains the platform’s founder.

Early in the year, the startup conducted a brand tracker to measure its awareness among the general public. In the survey, French people were asked to name travel brands they knew from a provided list.

And surprise, GreenGo appeared in 5% of cases.

“It’s not nothing, but it’s not a lot either. We therefore have a brand-awareness challenge, and to improve this, there is no secret: we must invest in marketing.”

GreenGo inaugurates its first outdoor advertising campaign in cities and bus shelters

This is how the idea of placing outdoor boards in the urban centers of France came about.

But why choose this route for a platform that launched online in 2021?

“We also invest a lot in social networks and Google. To be honest, we work across 15 different acquisition channels. We needed to diversify our communication channels and move toward offline channels.

We could have chosen among outdoor advertising, radio and television, but these media are not very accessible to us.

For people to know us more broadly, we must invest, while being prudent to avoid burning through cash. After all, this is a first step, the beginning of what we plan to roll out in the coming years“, hopes he.

And ultimately, to gain visibility, GreenGo will multiply its presence by ensuring physical and visual visibility in French cities, while also deploying the same campaign on social networks and through influencer actions.

To read: From France’s roads to Argentine glaciers… Guillaume Jouffre’s transformative travels

It is therefore a comprehensive effort to be visible to a large portion of the French population.

“The theme we’ve chosen is that you don’t need to travel to the far corners of the world to enjoy your holidays. It’s like the United States, but without Donald Trump.

We do not foreground the environmental aspect, even if it is underlying, but rather the side of desire and longing. Our mission is to encourage people to travel locally or not too far, to reduce the impact of holidays“, analyses Guillaume Jouffre.

Incidentally, note that another site has also undergone a transformation by stepping away from digital to advertise in the Paris metro. Founded in 2016, Kombo launched its first offline campaign during the last two weeks of April.

Summer 2027: GreenGo expects a ketchup effect on bookings

Guillaume Jouffre, fondateur de GreenGo - Photo GreenGO

Matthieu Marquenet, founder of Kombo, feels that his company has evolved from a simple website into a well-known brand. An achievement that will probably not immediately boost revenue, but rather in the medium and long term.

This will likely also be the case for GreenGo, even if the challenge remains to successfully navigate a summer that appears to be complicated. According to many professionals, including specialists on France, the summer season is presently in the background.

“The economic context is peculiar and we observe a rather strange trend, with the booking window shrinking. In March and April, it shortened by more than a week: we went from 67 days to 60 days between booking and stay.

Moreover, we observe that the average order value is slightly down, by about 3 to 4%, and the number of nights is also decreasing.”

I don’t think the French will drastically cut their vacation budgets or their desire to travel. I bet they simply shifted their booking window due to the conflict. There is a lot of hesitancy. We are waiting for the ketchup effect; the question is when it will occur“, estimates the gastronome Guillaume Jouffre.

The ketchup effect was popularized by footballer and economist Cristiano Ronaldo, who stated in 2010 that “Goals are like ketchup: when they come, they all come at once.”

The expression has since been used in the Harvard Business Review to describe a product, a market, or an asset that struggles to find its audience, before suddenly accelerating.

So, will tourism experience its ketchup moment? No one knows for sure, but the entire industry hopes so. It will depend on Trump and his willingness, or not, to end the conflict, on oil prices, and on a potential economic crisis.

In any case, this hesitation does not seem to scare GreenGo’s teams.

GreenGo: “We no longer want to be dependent on fundraising”

“We continue to sign up new hosts, almost 1,000 locations per month, while maintaining our level of rigor, meaning accommodations that are committed and with a certain degree of uniqueness“, continues the leader.

And despite everything, the satisfaction rate remains high, with an average rating of 4.87 out of 5.

The startup’s audience is looking for an offering that isn’t industrialized, with character, where human touch remains important, all without necessarily being premium.

A development, as with gift cards, made possible by the capital opening completed with 772 micro-shareholders. In just three days, it raised €1.6 million.

“We feel the wind has shifted, that funding in the startup field is more complex, and when you run a company focused on eco-responsibility and travel tech, it’s even harder.” We have entered a phase where we must be capable of reaching profitability next year. For the first time, we anticipate break-even at a scale that is already ambitious, and that pleases us.

This is not an indispensable path; we could choose to raise funds, but it is our strategic choice. The venture capital market has certainly cooled, and we no longer want to be dependent on fundraisings that force burning cash. We want to build something solid“, states the founder, setting the course.

Nevertheless, nothing guarantees that another fundraising round won’t occur in the coming months.

In a way, the teams want to take a breath after several sprint-like efforts to ensure GreenGo’s growth.

Europe remains an ambition, but a bit farther off, as its conquest requires funds. It will partly depend on the next fiscal year. What about developing a purpose-driven company for a more sustainable world in a rather unfavorable context?

“Like everyone else, I’m observing this backlash, which really coincides with Donald Trump’s election. It is much harder to talk about ecology in the media and reach is lower even on social networks.”

I belong to those who think we should not cling to these topics at all costs, but rather shift the communication strategy. We must use the desirability angle and say that our product has a positive impact, instead of talking about urgency and saying it’s a catastrophe.

We must stay engaged, while steering toward more broadly acceptable themes, such as domestic production (made in France) on our side

eDreams ODIGEO Posts Strong Profitability Growth in 2026

June 15, 2026 by Amara Nambinga

eDreams ODIGEO affiche une forte progression de sa rentabilité en 2026 - Depositphotos.com Auteur T.Schneider

Top of Travel

eDreams ODIGEO published, on Thursday, May 28, 2026, annual results that beat forecasts for the year ended March 31, 2026. The group, which positions itself as the world leader in travel subscriptions, posted a record adjusted net income of €72.9 million, up 42% year over year.

The company also surpassed its growth targets for its Prime subscription offering. In the period, 643,000 new subscribers joined the program, a figure higher than the 600,000 expected. Prime now has 8 million members.

Cash EBITDA reached €157 million, above the group’s forecasts, while adjusted EBITDA rose 29% to €172.3 million. The reported net income amounted to €52.2 million.

eDreams ODIGEO targets more than 13 million Prime subscribers by 2030

For Dana Dunne, CEO of eDreams ODIGEO, these results confirm the robustness of the group’s subscription model. “Our subscription platform fosters predictable and recurring revenues, which protects us from market volatility and supports sustainable growth,” he says.

The group also notes in a press release that its investment strategy and increased use of artificial intelligence should support its transformation into a global travel platform. Its new strategic roadmap envisages reaching over 13 million Prime subscribers and a Cash EBITDA above €270 million by 2030.