Air NZ on target to beat last year’s profits
While Air New Zealand says it is on target to beat last year’s $NZ96 million profit, economic analysts are less confident about the airline’s forecast.
Speaking at Air New Zealand’s AGM in Auckland yesterday, airline Chairman John Palmer said that if the lower fuel prices and the airline’s current operating conditions continued, profits would increase and while he accepted that the plans were ambitious considering the recognised volatility of fuel prices, the airline’s balance sheet was in a solid state and in a good position to grow.
Air New Zealand’s profits have almost dropped by half to $96 million this year but dividends were stable and the Board expected dividends to remain the same next year with the airline’s revenue growing by 5% to $NZ3.8billion in the last financial year and its global online revenue increasing 43% to $839 million.
With Palmer saying that he expected global online revenue to increase to $1 billion in 2007, Air New Zealand also announced that it was proposing a codeshare arrangement with Air Pacific, under which Air New Zealand and Air Pacific would operate a daily schedule between Fiji and Los Angeles, with connections to London.
Air New Zealand’s second daily service to the UK via Hong Kong will also commence on Saturday with its non-stop service to Shanghai, with connections to elsewhere in China and in Europe starting next month.
The airline said it had also bought four new 50-seater Q300s, had 17 Q300s on order and had refitted its Boeing 747 fleet.
Significantly, Palmer said the airline expected to be more involved in New Zealand’s tourism strategy as it believed that there were a number of gaps in the current tourism strategy at the moment and as a major operator, they expected to be more involved in the future.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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