Jet Airways more than doubles net at Rs 53.5 cr in Q1

Mumbai: The second largest airline Jet Airways on Tuesday said its standalone net income more than doubled to Rs 53.5 crore in the three months to June against Rs 25.9 crore a year ago in spite of a large one-time provisioning of Rs 56.6 crore.

This is the ninth consecutive profitable quarter for the airline after the recovery driven by a rising market and a low fuel price regime since mid 2014.

Total income of the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline rose to Rs 5,953 crore from Rs 5,341 crore, an increase of 11.3 per cent driven by increased load factor and an average rise in fares, which was also boosted by increased codeshares with international airlines. Standalone numbers do not include its subsidiary JetLite.

Including this, net rose to Rs 58 crore helped by an 11.8 per cent rise in passenger revenue at Rs 5,136 crore.

The airline attributed the healthy set of numbers to a 19 per cent jump in codeshare revenue and a 2.5 per cent decline in non-fuel costs on the back of its continuing efforts to prune cost and improve operational efficiencies.

Despite this, consolidated Ebitdar declined to Rs 1,005 crore from Rs 1,027 crore, the airline said.

The numbers would have been much higher had it not been for a one-time provision of Rs 56.6 crore for doubtful loans, the airline said.

"Despite being adversely impacted by a rise in fuel price that led to an increase in total cost per available seat kms (CASK), we continued our focus to ensure operational efficiencies, leading to a further reduction in CASK excluding fuel, which dropped by 2.5 per cent to Rs 3.22 from Rs 3.30 a year ago," the airline said.

The numbers were also boosted by a 3.4 per cent rise in domestic average fares reversing an otherwise declining trend witnessed in the last few quarters.

Chairman Naresh Goyal said the airline took several measures to revitalise its business and realise greater efficiencies in spite of weakening international demand, especially from the Gulf.

Low fares, together with addition of capacity in the domestic market, continues to put pressure on yields, he said.

Jet expanded its cooperation with its codeshare partners and the overall number of codeshare guests and revenues for the period grew 22 per cent and 76 per cent respectively, Goyal said.

During the quarter available seat kms (ASK) increased by 9.1 per cent to 14 billion, while the number of passengers rose 8.1 per cent to 7.10 million.

In the run-up to result announcement the Jet counter rose 1.7 per cent to Rs 581.80 on the BSE whose benchmark Sensex rallied 0.9 per cent to reclaim the 32,000 mount yet again.