Jazeera moves into profit, AGM told

Jazeera Airways Group has moved into the black, turning round last year's $10 million loss into a $38 million profit the Kuwaiti airline revealed yesterday.
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The group held its annual general meeting at the company’s headquarters in Freedom Town, Kuwait where shareholders approved the Board’s recommendation to issue a 10 percent bonus shares to shareholders following a record-breaking year.

For the year  ending December 2011, the Jazeera earned a record KD 10.6 million ($38m) in net profit with a record KD 57.8 million ($208m) in revenue, up 36 percent from 2010, and a record KD 14.9 million ($53.5m) in operating profit.

The airline flew 1.2 million passengers during the year and claimed to have the best on-time performance in the Middle East in 2011 according to flightstats.com.
The company had introduced a “turnaround plan” in Q2 of 2010 and said these results reflected the success of that plan.

Established in 2005, Jazeera Airways Group is a Kuwait Stock Exchange-listed company with over 12,000 shareholders. The company has a fleet of 12 fully-owned Airbus A320s, evenly distributed between its airline business, Jazeera Airways, and its leasing-arm Sahaab Aircraft Leasing. Sahaab has assets placed with Virgin America, SriLankan Airlines, and Jazeera Airways.
Group Chairman Marwan Boodai said, “The year 2011 was a record-breaking year despite the continued over capacity, the impact of political unrest on travel within our network, and an increasing fuel cost. Jazeera Airways today has a solid network, increasing load factors, reduced cost, high aircraft utilization, in addition to an aircraft leasing arm with assets deployed across the globe, from the US to the Middle East to Asia. We have a sustainable business model that has generated sustainable profitability quarter-on-quarter for six quarters in-a-row.”
Speaking to shareholders, Boodai gave an overview of the company’s focus areas and milestones in 2011. He said, “We had three priorities in 2011. First, building on the momentum of record-breaking returns seen in Q3 and Q4 2010.Second, successfully mitigating the impact of the political unrest on the business.And third, capturing a strong market share on the Cairo-Kuwait route that was launched in May 2011.”
The company’s outlook for 2012 continues to be positive in-line with a growing Kuwaiti economy, which continues to witness higher incomes despite international and regional economic pressures. Boodai said.