A report in The Daily Telegraph says that more than two million extra passengers flew with Qantas last financial year, boosting the airline’s chance of a $1 billion-plus profit announcement next month.
The airline carried 2.22 million more passengers in the 11 months to the end of May 2007 than in the previous corresponding period – a 7.1% lift.
The target of a failed $11.1 billion private equity takeover earlier this year, Qantas largely can thank its budget carrier Jetstar for the boost.
Jetstar flew 6.996 million passengers to the end of May, compared with the 5.26 million in 2005-06, an extra 33%.
Derek Sadubin, from the Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation, said the increases continued a stellar run for the airline, with a doubling of the $671 million profit it made in 2005-06 now a real possibility.
“We suspect bumper profits and they have really hit a sweet spot, particularly in the second half of their financial year which will lead to a spectacular result,” Mr Sadubin said.
“We’ve heard (profit) could be a billion or more which would be a record profit.” “The key thing that is driving it is the yield with a domestic yield increase of 4.3% is great.”
Amid the attempts to privatise Qantas, the airline trumpeted three profit upgrades, in March, the carrier forecasting a $940 million pre-tax profit, reiterating last month that it “remained comfortable that its 2006-07 profit before tax was in line with the average of market expectations”.
The number of domestic passengers rose 3.5% and QantasLink figures rose 16.8%, but due to increased competition, International travellers fell 6.3%.
Revenue per passenger per kilometre rose 7.5% for the group, but by 67.4% for Jetstar, 5.4% for Qantas Domestic, 20.7% for QantasLink and 1.6% for Qantas International.
Report by The Mole
