Comments
The Jet Airways stock was down 8.5 per cent. This reflected the market's disappointment over the company's record loss in the March quarter.
At Rs 2,153 crore, Jet's quarterly loss was the biggest ever and more than four times the loss in the same period last year.
Even if the goodwill impairment of Rs 700 crore in JetLite investment, and the one-time maintainence write-off of Rs 783 crore during the latest March quarter are excluded, the airline's loss of about Rs 670 crore was 35 per cent higher than that in the year-ago period.
The Jet Airways scrip ended at Rs 245.35 on the BSE, down 8.5 per cent over the previous close.
JetLite's losses
Losses also increased at low-cost subsidiary JetLite to Rs 313 crore in the March quarter from Rs 248 crore a year ago.
This reflected the continued strain in the operating performance of the company. Costs remained elevated in the lean March quarter.
Passenger traffic
Total number of passengers for the airline (including JetLite) fell about 4 per cent year-on-year; this was due to the 22 per cent fall in traffic in JetLite which more than offset the 4.5 per cent rise in Jet's passenger number. This reflected a conscious cut-down in JetLite's operations. Passenger load factors dipped for both Jet and JetLite.
Consolidated networth
The dismal performance in 2013-14 has further eroded the company's consolidated networth which currently is a negative Rs 4,175 crore, much worse than the negative Rs 1,828 crore a year ago.
No surprise then that the Jet Airways stock has lost more than 50 per cent of its value over the last year. With heavy management churn in the company (a new CEO was appointed yesterday ) and the competitive landscape set to worsen with the advent of Air Asia and Tata-SIA, Jet has its work cut out.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.