PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, JULY 29: Price war in the Indian skies has taken its toll on market leader Jet Airways, which suffered a net loss of Rs 45 crore during the first quarter of current financial year, despite clocking a 25 per cent increase in revenue at Rs 1,680 crore.
Announcing results for the April-June quarter, a day after its Chairman Naresh Goyal received the Best Aviation Company NDTV Profit Award from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Jet said its overall financial performance was impacted by factors including "continued yield pressure in our domestic and international operations and an increase in fuel and other input costs".
However, the premier private carrier reported pre-tax profit on domestic operations of Rs 11.8 crore.
"Loss before tax in our start-up international operations of Rs 71.3 crore resulted in an overall loss before tax for the company of Rs 59.5 crore in the quarter", the airline said.
The airline said all its international routes were profitable, barring the London sector.
"We are addressing our London route profitability through a combination of passenger and cargo sales initiatives and network partnerships with other established airlines".
Jet said the introduction of the second daily Mumbai-London flight completed its product offering on this sector, with convenient connections to Europe and North America as also the domestic network.
The other global routes the airline operates are Colombo, Kathmandu, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
The airline said the near-term outlook also remained difficult, despite the continuing growth of domestic and international traffic.
It said comprehensive profit enhancement programme was being executed through a combination of revenue enhancement measures like better yield management, higher cargo revenues and controlling costs, especially in the personnel, sale and distribution.
Maintaining that induction of high-salaried staff like pilots and engineers, including expatriates, along with a hike in staff training costs and normal annual wage increases had raised costs substantially, it said strict controls on all non-operational related recruitment were being implemented.