Air Arabia, the largest low-cost carrier in the Middle East and North Africa, said second-quarter profit jumped 128 per cent amid cost cutting and higher passengers numbers.
Net income increased to Dh173 million in the three months ending June 30, compared with Dh76m in the same period the previous year. Turnover increased 15 per cent to Dh915 mln in the second quarter versus Dh797m last year. The second-quarter profit beat the average estimate of Dh127.5m by two analysts polled by Bloomberg.
“Air Arabia’s outstanding start to 2014 has accelerated in the second quarter as the investments made into our operational capacity and cost management have continued to deliver results,” said Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammad Al Thani, the company’s chairman.
“As we look to continue this momentum of business growth in the second half of the year, Air Arabia will remain focused on its ceaseless cost management operation and dynamic fuel management policies, while adopting new innovative services and measures that will add even more value to our customer-centric strategy. We look forward to serving many more passengers in the months and years to come.”
The airline served more than 1.6 million passengers in the quarter, an increase of 8 per cent compared with the 1.5 million passengers carried in the same period of last year, it said. The airline’s average seat load factor, or passengers carried as a percentage of available seats, was 84 per cent.
Air Arabia this year opened its second hub in the UAE and fourth worldwide at Ras Al Khaimah International Airport following a long-term strategic partnership with Ras Al Khaimah Department of Civil Aviation. The first flight took off on May 6 and the carrier is currently offering direct services to Jeddah, Cairo, Muscat, Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Dhaka.
RAK International Airport expects to boost passenger traffic by as much as a third next year after a turbulent recent history. The addition of services from Air Arabia has helped to compensate for the loss of the low-cost carrier RAK Airways. RAK Airways announced on January 1 that it was grounding all flights until further notice because of mounting financial woes.
mkassem@thenational.ae
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