Passenger numbers however, decline by 6% (330 words)

Published: 10/31/2000

Despite carrying 6% less passengers in the first nine months of 2000, Krasnoyarsk based KrasAir has reported that the 583,080 passengers carried generated the airline an increase of 32% in operating income in rubles and 16% in dollars to $65.5m for the period. Revenues for the period grew by 22% to 2.2 billion rubles and were 9.6% higher in dollars at $78m.

Domestic traffic in the period fell by 14% to 477,935 passengers, the company is however, and reluctant to subscribe any reason for the fall other than they feel their declines reflect the general trend in Russian domestic air traffic. Sibir and Aeroflot however, reported increases of 8% and 9% respectively for the period. The former driven by growth in domestic traffic from broadly the same base as Krasair. Krasair's decline in traffic during the summer months of 22%, also suggests that some thing may be more fundamentally a miss, if it cannot generate growth in the traditionally buoyant summer period.

The company did experience good growth in its international traffic, 18% of its total passengers, which increased by 55% to 105,145 passengers. The improvement in the passenger mix, in the absence of other data, probably contributes to the improved operating performance.

The company carried 15,768 tonnes or 7% more cargo in January-September 2000. With cargo traffic the opposite of passenger traffic with international volumes falling by 36% while domestic increased 31%. Good growth figures when compared with other carriers for the period.

Despite the fall in volumes the airline increased seat load factors by 2.9% to 64.4% and the commercial load factor increased 22.0% to 69.2%, reflecting less flights and changes in routes, which reduced the Krasair's flying time in the period by 8%. In market share terms the airline believes that it has a share of 5.2% of the overall passenger market in the first nine months, which represents an unchanged position for its share for the whole of 1999.

Article ID: 2168