ANA Holdings – the parent company of All Nippon Airways (ANA) – has reported that from April-September group net profit fell year-on-year (YOY) 37.7 per cent to 73.74 billion yen ($653 million).
The Japanese carrier said this figure was due to higher fuel costs and a one-off profit booked the previous year from the addition of Peach Aviation.
Group operating profit dropped YOY by 8.6 per cent to 105.2 billion yen for the six months through September on sales of 1.04 trillion yen, up YOY by 5.4 per cent.
ANA said passenger traffic on domestic flights slipped YOY by 0.7 per cent to 22.3 million due to the impact of earthquakes and heavy rain in Japan from June to September. The load factor was up YOY though 1.7 percentage points to 69.8 per cent.
Traffic was also affected by the cancellation of flights due to inspection and maintenance of Rolls-Royce engines and the temporary closure of Osaka’s Kansai International Airport during the second quarter.
ANA said in terms of the route network, efforts were made to capture demand by increasing flights on the Kansai-Miyako and Chubu-Okinawa routes, as well as a late-night flight (Galaxy Flight) on the Haneda-Okinawa route for a limited period in summer.
International passenger traffic was up YOY by 8.6 per cent to 5.17 million due to strong business demand originating in Japan and the capture of robust inbound demand from countries such as China. The load factor was up YOY by 1.6 percentage points to 77.4 per cent.
In terms of the route network, the number of flights on the Tokyo Haneda-Bangkok route was increased to three per day from June, bringing the total number of flights to five per day when combined with the Narita-Bangkok route as ANA strengthened its efforts to capture business and leisure demand to and from the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.
In the LCC segment, despite the Kansai closure the number of passengers and revenues increased YOY due to the expansion of the route network and the capture of robust inbound travel demand with 4.06 million passengers flying, up YOY by 4.7 per cent. The load factor was down 0.3 percentage points to 87.1 per cent.
As for the route network, Peach Aviation expanded its network by beginning a new Okinawa-Kaohsiung route in April and the Kansai-Kushiro route in August, while Vanilla Air expanded its network by establishing the Narita-Ishigaki and the Okinawa-Ishigaki routes in July.
ANA forecasts for the full business year through to March next year that net profit will come in at 102 billion yen, down 29.1 per cent from the previous year.
