Turkish Airlines Jumps to 3-Month High on Profit: Istanbul Mover

Turk Hava Yollari (THYAO) AO, the carrier known as Turkish Airlines, jumped to the highest in more than three months after reporting it swung to a second-quarter profit.

The shares climbed as much as 2.5 percent before trading 1.7 percent higher at 3.66 liras by 1:58 p.m. in Istanbul, the strongest level since May 17.

The company reported a net income of 193.1 million liras ($106 million) in the three months to June, beating the average estimate of 113.9 million liras from 11 analysts on Bloomberg. It posted a 170.6 million-lira loss in the same period last year. Sales advanced to 3.8 billion liras from 2.8 billion liras.

Turkish Airlines doubled its EBITDA year-on-year through “higher load factor and higher yields,” Erkan Savran, the head of research at Ak Investment, said in an e-mailed report today. The company kept “costs under control mainly via savings in maintenance, ground handling and to a lesser extent personnel expenses,” Savran said.

The stock has surged 73 percent this year, compared with a 31 percent rally in the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 Index. (XU100)

The carrier trades at 12.6 times projected earnings for this year, compared with an average price-to-earnings ratio of 11.57 for the index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Selcuk Gokoluk in Istanbul at sgokoluk@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net