Thai Airways Posts Q1 Profit, Nok Air Posts Q1 Loss

17th May 2016

National airline of Thailand, Thai Airways International (THAI) has posted a net profit of nearly 6 billion baht (5.99B baht, or US$169M) for the first quarter of 2016. The carrier reported an increase of 32 per cent compared to the period between January and March last year.

THAI has previously posted net losses for three years in a row and a big reason for this quarter’s reported profit stems from the 25 per cent fall in fuel costs, or 3.6 billion baht.

At a Monday media conference THAI President Charamporn Jotikasthira announced a new “sales support system” to go “public” in July. This will help the carrier develop a more cost-efficient structure than it has right now.

Mr Charamporn also revealed some of THAI might sell stakes in some of its subsidiaries in the period before us. He didn’t say what subsidiaries that could be; only that it would be those with fewer interactions with the aviation industry.

THAI President said:

The first quarter went according to plan, so the rest of the remaining three quarters should be better than the previous year.

Nok Air Posts

Meanwhile, the situation is reversed at the low-cost carrier (LCC) Nok Air, which posted a Q1 loss of 379.9 million baht (US$10.8 million).  In the same period (January-March) of 2015, Nok Air posted a net profit of 55.6 million baht.

The LCC’s Q1 operating costs were 10.8 per cent greater than last year and were 3.55 billion baht. At the same time, Nok Air’s Q1 revenue dripped 2.04 per cent and was 3.38 billion baht.

The reason for the losses, Nok Air states, originates from the rise of aircraft lease rental and from the ongoing maintenance costs, which is the result of the recent Nok Air’s fleet expansion. Also, the carrier said the pressure came from:

 Domestic low-cost carriers still facing challenges from local price wars and oversupply.

Nok Air also said the poor results and the revenue drop were:

Mainly due to flight frequency cuts, resulting in a 7.1 per cent decrease in ASKs and 10.3 per cent drop in the number of passengers carried as a result of the reduction in pilot numbers.

Related Airlines

• Nok Air
• Thai Airways

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