Tunisair is a listed company that has not published a balance sheet since 2018, and is not subject to sanctions by the Financial Market Council (CMF). However, the company insists that it wants to get back on track with its shareholders. According to our information, the company has finally held a board meeting to discuss its 2019 results, which are due to be published shortly.
The sources we were able to speak to, in the absence of a CEO who remains mute [he likes to offer coffee in his office with the smile we know him for, but doesn’t say a word about what he’s doing, even when confronted with our information], confirm that the problem behind these publication delays lies in the new ERP system acquired by the company, which took five years to set up and implement.
Now that it is in place, it will allow the data required for the balance sheet to be properly updated and all the accounts for the years 20, 21 and 2022 to be prepared this year and published as of the company’s next general meeting, scheduled for November 2023. According to our sources, Tunisair will close this interlude of annual accounts to be definitively published in 2025.
Turnover of TND 1.4 billion in 9 months 2023
For 2022, our source rightly recalls the impact of the COVID years and the dark years of terrorism under the Ennahdha governments, which it, like the rest of Tunisian companies, both public and private, is suffering. According to our sources, COVID alone caused Tunisair to lose TND 2.4 billion in turnover, while its fixed costs remained unchanged and it maintained salaries and jobs, unlike other airlines, even national ones. But no matter!
For 2022, our source was proud to announce a 30% increase in passenger numbers compared to 2021. In that year, the airline ended the financial year with almost TND 700 million. The target for 2022 is a turnover of TND 1.1 billion. In terms of passengers, the first 9 months of 2023 would have seen an increase of 18%, and in terms of turnover, an increase of almost 22%, which would have meant a turnover of TND 1.4 billion.
If our source is to be believed, then Tunisair is clearly on cloud nine, more than safe and sound, weathering the storms of the COVID years more serenely than ever, stabilizing its fleet and recovering its markets!
Fending off competition from Nouvelair and Transavia
Things seem to have changed at Tunisair. In 2019, it will have 24 operational aircraft. In 2022 and 2023, the airline will operate with only 15 aircraft. Its strategy is now to operate more with fewer aircraft, optimizing its fleet at a time when the flow of tourists has reversed, with fewer departures due to difficulties in obtaining visas.
Their load factor does not exceed 74%. But they consider it “satisfactory”, according to our source at the public airline, and assure us that maintaining it is already a challenge to be taken up in the face of local and international competition, which is lighter and cheaper, where low-cost operates, in Tunisia and over Tunisia, with Nouvelair, which has 14 aircraft and 1/3 of Tunisair’s staff, not to mention Transavia and Air-France for Tunisian expats in particular.
What is the status of the financial and social restructuring plan?
None of this, however, should distract from Tunisair’s growing debt (accumulated debt of TND 2 billion, including TND 1.1 billion for OACA), which will end the 2022 financial year with a net loss of around TND 200 million and an operating loss of TND 80 million.
Optimistically, one might think, our source mentions a very forthcoming Cabinet meeting that will be dedicated to Tunisair’s restructuring plans. Roughly speaking, this would include a redundancy plan for a thousand people, which, according to the source, has already been approved by the social partners, the only thing lacking is funding, and which would cost 40 million Tunisian dinars.
It would also involve an increase in the company’s capital, in which the majority shareholder (65%) would not have to put its hand in its pocket, neutral in terms of financial flows, but by means of a “revolving cheque”.
This is why our source is more than confident that Tunisair will return to profitability in 2024. “It won’t be big, but it will be very significant in the recovery phase and in the post-pandemic and post-COVID recovery mode,” says our source.
And what reassures them is that bankers have confidence in them and no longer see them as a risky company. To this end, they cite the example of the TND 31 million credit for the maintenance plan, or the dry lease financing for the renewal of the fleet with a state guarantee, or the rescheduling of its debts with certain public companies.
Our source assures us that Tunisair is relying first and foremost on its own resources and that it is paying its debts and commitments on time, as it has done with the SNDP, the CNSS and even Citibank. And we could believe all this if it turned out that Tunisair has an annual turnover of 1.4 billion dinars, which confirms its ability to finance its own cash flow and its other programs to get back on its feet after three years. But all this depends on the government of Ahmed Hachani, a financier by profession and a human resources expert, agreeing to the two restructuring plans!
