Jet moves back into the black

Jet Airways experienced a strong upturn in fortunes in the quarter ending 31 December 2014, returning to the black following seven consecutive three-monthly losses.

The Indian carrier, which is being transformed by Etihad Airways, posted its first operating profit since December 2012 as the effects of its turnaround plans started to take hold.

Jet generated a small US$485,000 operating profit in Q3
Jet generated a small US$485,000 operating profit in Q3
Profits were small, at just INR30 million (US$485,000), but this marked a considerable improvement from the INR2.84 billion loss recorded in the same period 12 months previous.

The Mumbai-based carrier’s revenues climbed 9% year-on-year, or by an extra US$67m, to INR54.36bn. Jet carried 5.8m passengers during the quarter, up 10.4% year-on-year, while average load factors jumped more than five percentage points to 82.1%.

“At the beginning of FY15 we outlined a three-year turnaround plan to get Jet Airways back to profitability. Today our business performance provides hard evidence that we are turning the business around and are on track to achieve our targets,” said Cramer Ball, Jet’s CEO.

“It is pleasing to report that we have achieved significant growth in all the major KPIs in a very competitive environment. While the global and local operating conditions have eased, we only expect to see the real impact of the lower fuel price in the next quarter,” he added.

The benefits of Jet’s partnership with Etihad were also apparent; codeshare traffic – much of it with Etihad or Etihad’s other partners – surged 93%.

Jet’s turnaround plan involves “optimising the network to have tighter domestic and international network integration, [and] synergies with partner carriers”. It has also moved to a purely full-service model, having scrapped all low-cost operations at the end of last year.

sourced:traveldailymedia.com