Air Deccan may fly into profit zone

Mumbai: When the Air Deccan board meets on January 25 to consider the quarterly results, the chances are that the airline could substantially pare down its losses and perhaps even turn in a modest profit during the October-December quarter, a vast improvement over the Rs 43-crore loss in the previous quarter, claim company officials.
Air Deccan officials are at pains to show this uptick in performance is no sleight of hand. In December, buoyed by a surge in passenger traffic and better margins, the airline showed an improvement on all the key performance indicators.
For one, average yield per passenger was Rs 3,200 during the month, up from Rs 2,780 in the July-September 2006 quarter, Air Deccan finance director Mohan Kumar said. Mr Kumar claims that the airline starts to break even at Rs 3,100 per seat.
According to Mr Kumar, much of the turnaround was mainly on account of being able to control its costs.
04/01/07 Cuckoo Paul/Economic Times

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