Air Arabia profit drops by 10% to Dh103m

May 08, 2017: Air Arabia has reported Dh103 million net profit for the first quarter of 2017, marking a 10 percent drop over the Dh114 million recorded in the same period in 2016.

In a statement, Air Arabia said it posted a first-quarter turnover of Dh810 million, a 14 per cent decline over the first quarter in 2016. The airline said the decline was caused in wake of the drop in yield margins across the industry over the first three months of the year.

The profits for the first quarter, though lower year-on-year, are a turnaround from the Dh38.6 million in losses recorded by the carrier in the fourth quarter of 2016. The loss at the time came well below market expectations, with the consensus being for a fourth quarter profit of Dh57 million. Air Arabia attributed the results to challenges in the global aviation market.

However, the airline says that the trading conditions are on an improving trajectory.
“We believe the market economic and trading conditions are on an improving trajectory, and we are optimistic that this will reflect positively on the industry’s performance for the rest of the year,” said Shaikh Abdullah Al Thani, chairman of Air Arabia.

The Sharjah-based carrier, Air Arabia said it carried more than 2.1 million passengers between January and March 2017, in line with the number of passengers it carried in the first quarter of last year.
Its average seat load factor (or passengers carried as a percentage of available seats) during the quarter reached 81 per cent.