Jet Airways posted its fourth straight quarterly loss yesterday, as the top Indian carrier in terms of passengers carried continued to reel under higher fuel costs and lower fares, but said its fund-raising plan was on track. Jet’s results mirror the sorry state of domestic airline companies which face a severe cash-crunch and are under a massive debt pile of about USD 20 billion. All but one of the country’s six main airlines are loss-making, with state-run Air India on government life-support.
A weak rupee which fell about 16 per cent last year is also adding to their woes. Jet posted a loss of Rs 101 crore for the quarter ending December, compared with a profit of Rs 118 crore a year ago. Revenue rose 13.4 per cent to Rs 3,339 crore. “The company continues to explore options to improve operating results and cash flow through sale and lease back of aircraft, route rationalisation and cost control measures,” Naresh Goyal, Chairman, Jet Airways said in a statement, according to a report by Financial Chronicle. Jet’s auditors said in the company statement that its ability to generate cash to support obligations and its low-cost subsidiary, JetLite, will be crucial to its continuing operations. Jet, with JetLite, enjoys about a quarter of India’s total civil aviation market. The company’s fund-raising plans were “well on track,” the statement said. “We are continuing to see a steady increase in our corporate and business class bookings over the last few weeks, given what has been happening in the industry and with competition,” Jet said. “We are not seeing any major slowdown in our international bookings into and out of Europe and North America.”
Click here to see the original article>A weak rupee which fell about 16 per cent last year is also adding to their woes. Jet posted a loss of Rs 101 crore for the quarter ending December, compared with a profit of Rs 118 crore a year ago. Revenue rose 13.4 per cent to Rs 3,339 crore. “The company continues to explore options to improve operating results and cash flow through sale and lease back of aircraft, route rationalisation and cost control measures,” Naresh Goyal, Chairman, Jet Airways said in a statement, according to a report by Financial Chronicle. Jet’s auditors said in the company statement that its ability to generate cash to support obligations and its low-cost subsidiary, JetLite, will be crucial to its continuing operations. Jet, with JetLite, enjoys about a quarter of India’s total civil aviation market. The company’s fund-raising plans were “well on track,” the statement said. “We are continuing to see a steady increase in our corporate and business class bookings over the last few weeks, given what has been happening in the industry and with competition,” Jet said. “We are not seeing any major slowdown in our international bookings into and out of Europe and North America.”