Air Transport

Japan's All Nippon Airways has reported a net loss of ¥29.2 billion ($305.3 million) for its fiscal first quarter, with the carrier saying that the recession and fears about the HINI flu virus adversely affected its operations.

This was ¥35.8 billion lower than the ¥6.6b billion net profit it made during the corresponding period a year ago. Revenues for the three months ended 30 June fell by 21.9% to ¥269.8 billion, offsetting a 5.6% fall in costs to ¥312.3 billion. The Star Alliance member posted an operating loss of ¥42.4 billion.

"Beset by H1N1 influenza, which came on top of the global recession to further suppress demand to levels not seen before, the three month period under review was tough in the extreme," said Tomohiro Hidema, ANA's executive vice-resident for finance.

"Individual consumption in Japan was down, as companies saw tumbling revenues across the board and capital investment fell. While we managed to achieve around 6% in cost-savings in this quarter, continuing the trend from last year, this was far outweighed by the fall in revenue."

The airline says that the effects of H1N1 were lessening and that that it was trying to stimulate demand for leisure travel. It also expects passenger numbers to improve in the coming months.

In the cargo business, which has been hit badly around Asia, ANA finds that volumes are improving, particularly on its China and other Asia routes. It expects this to continue beyond the fiscal second quarter.

To keep the impact of the drastic drop in revenues in the first quarter to a minimum, it is implementing an "Emergency Income Recovery Plan" that could save up to ¥30 billion. This is in addition to its earlier announced ¥73 billion cost-cutting plan.

As a result, ANA is not changing its forecast for the fiscal year. It said in April that it expects to make a net profit of ¥3 billion for the year ending 31 March 2010, up from a net loss of ¥4.2 billion during the last fiscal year.