By Kylie Madry and Fabian Cambero
SANTIAGO (Reuters) -LATAM Airlines on Thursday posted a 95% year-on-year fall in net profit in the fourth quarter to $84 million, as its operations stabilized after exiting bankruptcy in late 2022.
The sharp drop for the final three months of 2023 reflected a normalization for LATAM after it was boosted a year earlier by an $8 billion restructuring plan, finance chief Ramiro Alfonsin told reporters.
LATAM's passenger traffic, as measured in the metric of available seat kilometers (ASK), grew 14.7% in the quarter, just under 2019's growth rate.
The airline's adjusted EBITDAR - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortization and restructuring or rent costs - increased in the quarter by 29.9% year-on-year to $675 million.
In December, LATAM projected record EBITDAR for this year of between $2.6 billion and $2.9 billion. The firm on Thursday maintained its estimates for 2024.
The Santiago-based carrier saw quarterly revenues rise 18.5% to $3.25 billion.
The group's net leverage closed out the year at 2.1 times adjusted EBITDAR, down from a multiple of 4.0 at the end of 2022. LATAM aims to bring that down to between 1.8 and 2.0 in the year.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Anthony Esposito and Sonali Paul)
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