Saga narrows losses as cruises resume

Over-50s cruise and insurance business Saga narrowed its losses last year as easing Covid restrictions allowed the company to take more passengers on trips.

The company said pre-tax losses were £23.5 million in the 12 months to the end of January compared with £61.2 million a year earlier.

Revenues were up from £337.6 million to £377.2 million.

Bosses struggled for most of the first half of the year to run its cruise and holiday operations but they remained hopeful for the future with booking for this year at 73% capacity.

Bookings for its tour operations remain 30% below pre-pandemic levels with customer confidence still impacted by Covid-19, although the company said it expects this to recover during the year.

In the insurance division, the number of motor and home policies were 1.6 million – an increase of 1.4% on the prior year – and customer retention was also up.

Chief executive Euan Sutherland said: “Over the last year, Saga has delivered a resilient performance, whilst laying the foundations for future growth.”

He added: “The insurance business delivered a robust performance with the second year of policy growth after several years in decline, whilst in travel, we resumed operations, secured positive cruise bookings for 2022/23 and began the restructure of our tour operations business.

“Looking to the future, I am both confident and excited about the opportunities ahead of us as we emerge stronger from the pandemic than we went in, whilst remaining mindful of the current challenging external environment.”

Saga said it has also made an initial assessment of the potential impact that the Russia-Ukraine conflict could have on the business.

It said “potential downsides are considered to be limited to short-term reductions to travel bookings and inflationary pressures”, but that any impact has been covered.