All Nippon suffers US$43 million loss as operating profit drops 91pc

ALL Nippon Airways has posted a fiscal 2008 loss of US$43 million, representing the group's first full-year net loss in six years, down from a net profit of $657 million in fiscal 2007, after international cargo revenue fell 4.3 per cent to $707 million.

Revenue from overall operations amounted to $14.3 billion in fiscal 2008, down 6.4 per cent from the previous fiscal year. Operating profit plunged 91 per cent to $77 million.

The carrier attributed the decline to an unprecedented fall in demand for air travel, high-yield business travel and a sharp drop in demand for air cargo services in the second half.

The ANA group carried 354,000 tons of freight on its international routes in fiscal 2008, up 6.5 per cent from fiscal 2007. International freight totalled 1.653 billion ton kilometres, up 0.5 per cent, reports Newark's Journal of Commerce.

The ANA group's revenue from its domestic cargo operations grew 8.3 per cent in fiscal 2008 to $338 million. The ANA group carried 475,000 tons of freight on its domestic routes, up 2.7 per cent year on year, and its domestic freight transportation volume amounted to 464 million ton kilometres, up 4.4 per cent.

On the international cargo operations, ANA "aggressively captured demand for cargo flows from China and the rest of Asia to North America and Europe, resulting in increased volumes for the full financial year," the airline said in a statement.

However, demand tailed off from November in the wake of the global recession and unit price fell in the face of increasing competition, bringing down revenue compared with the previous year, ANA was cited as saying.

Volumes carried on domestic routes increased during the 12 months under review, thanks in part to a change in the designation of small packages transported for Japan Post from 'mail' to 'cargo', and an off-peak charging structure introduced to take advantage of quieter afternoon and holiday periods, the company said.

Looking ahead, ANA is forecasting that group revenue will decline 3.1 per cent in fiscal 2009 to $13.8 billion on a group operating profit of $359 million and net profit of $31 million.

Source: Schednet