Thailand's two leading airlines, Thai Airways International (THAI) and Thai AirAsia (TAA), yesterday reported contrasting second-quarter financial results.
Charamporn: Blames one-time expenses
The flag carrier showed a wider loss that amounted to 12.8 billion baht in the April-June period, an increase of 66.5%, or 5.09 billion baht more than what it reported in the same period last year.
The country's largest low-cost carrier declared net profit of 374 million baht, a turnaround from the loss of 318 million baht it suffered in the previous period.
In the filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday, THAI president Charamporn Jotikasthira singled out combined one-time expenses of 7.82 billion baht for pushing the airline's quarterly financial result further into the red.
Topping the loss contributors were the 3.72 billion baht in severance payment for the early retirement programme involving 1,401 employees and the 3.67 billion baht in foreign exchange losses, followed by the 426 million baht loss of impairment on assets and aircraft.
THAI's second-quarter losses were greater than the average of 10 billion baht forecasts made by analysts.
It was a reversal from the first quarter, when the national airline recorded a net profit of 4.54 billion baht spurred by a robust travel industry and recovering tourism, foreign exchange gains and cost controls put in place under a business rehabilitation plan.
For the first six months of this year, the state-controlled airline suffered a net loss of 8.21 billion baht, an improvement over the 11 billion baht posted in the same period last year.
Mr Charamporn noted the special expense payout has dulled improved operating performance across various measures in the second quarter.
It recorded a 20% increase in passengers flown, an 11% increase in revenue passenger kilometres and only a 2% rise in available seat kilometres compared with the same period last year, and a 5.7% growth in load factor from 63.5% last year to 69.2%.
But total revenue dropped 4% to 41.80 billion baht, primarily due to the decline in cargo and commercial mail revenue.
It was a different story for no-frills TAA, which announced a 26% surge in second-quarter revenue to 6.88 billion baht.
Continued lower fuel costs in the second quarter pushed TAA's combined first-half revenue to 14.6 billion baht and net profit to 1.29 billion baht.
TAA chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld said yesterday the airline served 3.54 million passengers with an average load factor of 80% in the second quarter, up two percentage points compared with the same period last year.
For the first half of 2015, the airline carried 7.24 million passengers, up 22% year-on-year.
Mr Tassapon voiced confidence that the airline would be able to achieve targets set for the second half of the year, saying that it did not expect to be affected by the International Civil Aviation Organization's red-flagging of Thailand over its aviation industry's safety shortcomings.