Aer Lingus parent IAG confident on future payouts

Aer Lingus owner IAG will continue to generate attractive returns for shareholders despite a difficult 2016 which forced it to lower some of its longer-term targets, its finance chief said on Friday.

"The group is very well prepared to continue developing an attractive shareholder return," chief financial officer Enrique Dupuy de Lome told investors at the airline company's capital markets day.

IAG confirmed forecasts for average annual earnings per share growth of at least 12 per cent for the 2016-2020 period, but trimmed its outlook for core earnings, saying it expected them to average €5.3 billion per year, down from the €5.6 billion it had previously said.

Last year IAG's board approved an interim dividend, the group's first payout since the company was created in 2011 through a merger of BA and Spanish airline Iberia.

The firm said it was reviewing outstanding orders for the latest Boeing and Airbus wide-body jets and keeping older planes for longer and adding more seats to others as overcapacity and Brexit weighed on earnings.

– Reuters