Avis Budget Group has reported its best-ever results for the first quarter as business travel demand picked up through March.
The car rental firm said corporate demand had picked up quickly after being “non-existent” in January, due to the Omicron variant, and was even higher than 2019 levels in the latter part of the quarter.
Avis Budget CEO Joe Ferraro said: "We reported our best-ever first-quarter results in our company's history.
“We generated $810 million of adjusted [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] in the first quarter. That's higher than the full-year adjusted EBITDA of 2019 and we delivered this in what is typically the seasonally lowest quarter of year.
"I believe strongly that commercial business is good for our company. It gives you a midweek peak on how to utilise the fleet more effectively. I think going forward you will see a good mix especially in the second quarter of both commercial and leisure."
Corporate clients are also keeping their vehicles for longer than pre-Covid and Ferraro added that "prices have become elevated for us for commercial business".
Avis Budget reported $2.4 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2022, a 77 per cent increase from the same period in 2021 and a 27 per cent increase from the first quarter of 2019. Net income was $527 million, compared with a loss of $170 million for the same period in 2021.
The company reported an average rental fleet of more than 594,000 vehicles for the first quarter, up from just over 412,000 cars in 2021.
Vehicle utilisation stayed steady at about 67 per cent. Rental days increased to just over 36 million, compared with just under 25 million days in the first quarter of 2021.