Jet Airways on Friday reported
sharply reduced losses in the September quarter at Rs 99.7 crore against Rs 713 crore last year amid 26 per cent growth in operating income and Rs 89.6 crore forex gains.
Naresh Goyal-owned company had reported a forex loss of Rs 276 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
Net sales rose to Rs 4,190 crore, up 25.8 per cent from comparable period last fiscal, the company said in a release.
Besides, Ebitdar (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and aircraft rent) margins at its domestic operations rose 9.3 per cent, against a negative margin of 8.1 per cent in the corresponding quarter last fiscal, the company said.
Commenting on the performance, chief executive Nikos Kardasis said, "improvement in yields has helped the group to post an operating profit. However, lean season, slowdown in industry passenger traffic due to weakened economic scenario, high fuel prices coupled with rupee fall have pulled the overall results down."
Jet Airways, which has recently
lost its market domination to no-frills carrier IndiGo and was placed at the third slot in the October market share sweepstake after IndiGo and state-owned Air India, had posted Rs 24.70 crore profit in the June quarter after reporting losses for five consecutive quarters.
"Jet has managed to remain competitive through a series of planned steps, such as sale/sale and lease back of aircraft, discontinuing loss-making routes and stringent cost control measures. The ongoing initiatives will augment well for the airlines performance in the quarters to come," the release said.
The airline has focused on removing loss making routes, network rationalisation and selectively adding routes which made economic sense, Nikos said adding, "these steps have resulted in improvement in operating profit y-o-y by Rs 520 crore for the group."
Jet expects the peak season ahead will help it improve yields further as the forward bookings trends for the quarter are quite encouraging, it said.
"Our focus remains to discontinue loss making routes and selectively introduce additional flights/new flights on those sectors contributing to the bottom-line. In this ensuing peak season more of business class seats will be on offer," it said.
The airline also said there are signs of improvement in crude prices even as the rupee is strengthening and that it will continue with its cost reduction initiatives.
Besides sale/sale and lease back of aircraft will be done in the coming quarters which will help improve the bottomline further and generate cash, the airline said.
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