Jet Airways Group records second profitable Year

Mumbai, May 30, 2017
Jet Airways Group FY17 highlights:

Total revenue up 1.7% at INR 22,693 crores compared to INR 22,321 crores in FY16
Available Seat Kilometers increased by 6.7% to 53.5 billion over FY16
Passengers carried increased by 5.1% to 27.15m from 25.84m in FY16
Codeshare traffic increased by 8.3% from 2.08m passengers in FY16 to 2.26 m passengers in FY17
Passengers delivered by Etihad Airways and Etihad Airways Partners rose by 7.1% in FY17
Non-fuel CASK reduced by 1.2% in FY17 to INR 3.22 from INR 3.26 in FY16
Jet Airways Group Q4, FY17 highlights:

Total revenue up 3.5% at INR 5,728 crores compared to INR 5,533 crores in Q4, FY16
Available Seat Kilometers up 8% at 13.7 billion over Q4, FY16
Passengers carried increased by 5.4% to 7.02m over Q4, FY16
Non-fuel CASK reduced by 5% in FY17 to INR 3.15 from INR 3.32 in Q4, FY16
Jet Airways Group today announced its second successive profitable year for the year ended Mar. 31, 2017. The Group reported a consolidated profit of INR 438 crores for the year. For Q4 of FY17, the group reported a net profit of INR 23 crores.

Despite the challenges posed by the recent increase in Brent price, coupled with continuing low airfares and increased capacity, the airline reported profit during FY17.

During the quarter as part of its strategy, Jet Airways undertook several measures to strengthen domestic connectivity, expanding its footprint between emerging cities and metro hubs. The airline introduced direct connectivity between new city pairs such as Delhi–Mangaluru, Mumbai–Bagdogra, Mumbai–Madurai and Jaipur–Chandigarh. With increasing demand in India, the airline also redeployed its capacity on select routes and initiated measures to induct additional aircraft in its fleet. Jet Airways also continued its emphasis on driving internal improvements to achieve operational efficiencies throughout its business as evidenced by the reduction in non-fuel CASK by 5% to INR 3.15 during Q4, FY17.

Naresh Goyal, Chairman, Jet Airways, said, "The past year has been extremely challenging for both domestic and international markets. Notwithstanding the growth in traffic in the domestic market, the downward pressure on yields continued despite rise in oil prices. We achieved positive results through our relentless effort to streamline operations, improve productivity and business performance, enabling us to reduce our debt by INR 1,902 crores during this year, despite weakening demand in certain international markets, especially Gulf."

"We forged as well as expanded our codeshare partnerships with leading airlines, including our strategic partner, Etihad Airways to strengthen our core proposition of providing our guests from around the world with greater choice and connectivity. Our strategy of creating and leveraging multiple gateways to facilitate seamless travel has started to show results. We are committed to prioritise and invest in network enhancement, superior guest experience and operational efficiencies at all touch points to ensure sustainable growth and value addition for stakeholders."

An Etihad Aviation Group spokesperson said, "Jet Airways’ has delivered profitability, which given the strong challenges, reflect the definite and correct choices that the management has made. As its strategic partner, Etihad Airways is committed to leverage our synergies and extend our cooperation to grow the combined value of our partnership in the form of definitive advantages for guests. Between us, the two partners carry the largest share of traffic between India and the Gulf vide our strong and compelling option of a larger comprehensive reach and exceptional guest experience for travellers to choose from."

Revenues from codeshare traffic for the fourth quarter of FY17 rose by 5.3%. During the quarter, Jet Airways strengthened its connectivity towards the Far East, forging successful codeshares with Hong Kong Airlines, Fiji Airways and JetStar Asia, bringing high-demand destinations such as Fiji, Bali, Okinawa (Japan), as well as Darwin and Auckland in Australia and New Zealand respectively, into its network for the very first time. Jet Airways’ network of 21 codeshares allow it to offer significantly enhanced global connectivity that will likely deliver growing passenger traffic during the coming quarters. Codeshare traffic with strategic partner Etihad Airways over its Abu Dhabi hub and with its partner airlines now generates over 1,800 guests daily.

The airline also introduced several guest-oriented initiatives during the year. One of the key ones included adopting an industry leading, innovative approach to boost capacity in slot-constrained metros. The airline introduced its wide-body aircraft in the domestic network boosting connectivity between the key metros while garnering guest appreciation and reaffirming its commitment to provide best-in-class full service, travel experience to guests. The quarter also saw the airline announcing the Nation’s biggest ever frequent flyer reward promotion - 'The Billion Miles Festival', rewarding JetPrivilege (JP) members across the globe for their loyalty with unmatched bonus JPMiles worth more than a billion during the offer period.

Jet Airways became the first Indian airline to successfully integrate and offer the Govt. of India’s ‘Unified Payment Interface’ (UPI) as a digital payment mechanism for guests, as part of its philosophy of adopting ahead of curve technology to enhance guest experience. In fact, Jet Airways also became the only Indian brand - aside from only 15 global airlines, to earn a spot on the global list of “Top 200 Most Influential Brands in the World” by Richtopia - a leading digital platform covering a mix of valuable content on success, future investments, new technologies, work and life balance, inspirational people, finance and economics, reflecting the success of its Guest First approach.