Air Arabia Q1 net profit up by 33 per cent, passenger traffic up by 17 per cent
03 May 2007
The airline also said that it carried 580,000 passengers during the same period, an increase of 17 per cent in its passenger traffic.
Adel Ali, chief executive officer of Air Arabia, made the announcement on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market, an industry trade fair being hosted in Dubai.
Adel Ali said: "We are extremely pleased to post such strong results for the first quarter of this year, which is historically a low season for the industry. At a time when Air Arabia is in full expansion mode - including more flights and destinations and new ancillary services - we are proud that our financial fundamentals remain on a strong upward trend."
The company's net profit for 2006 stood at AED 101 million, up 222 per cent compared to AED 31.3 million in 2005. For the same period, the company posted a turnover of AED 749.16 million, up 82 per cent compared to AED 411 million in 2005.
The Sharjah-based low-cost carrier, which recently successfully concluded an AED 2.5 billion IPO, will shortly list its shares on the Dubai Financial Market. The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering, in addition to bank financing, to expand the size of its existing fleet from nine to at least 34 aircraft by 2016.