Air Mauritius – well on the road to recovery

SOFT EURO IMPACTS ON AIR MAURITIUS’ FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

(Posted 03rd September 2015)

Seat capacity up – passenger numbers up – loadfactors up … That was the core of the information received from Port Louis when national airline Air Mauritius released the results of the first quarter of their Financial Year 2015/16.

Seat capacity rose by 3 percent, overtaken by a 5 percent rise in passengers carried (315.098) while loadfactors across the fleet rose by 3 percent to reach 75.1 percent. Revenues too showed improvements with a rise of 2.1 percent to reach 106.5 million Euros during Q1.

The airline expressed some level of concern over the impact of the softish Euro but acknowledged that their change of focus with additional flights to China and to Mumbai was showing positive results for the bottom line, which showed a 9.8 million Euro profit inspite of increased competition for flights to the island.

On the upside have aggressive promotional campaigns, undertaken hand in hand with a re-invigorated Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (since the long overdue departure of former self-styled tourism tsar Karl Mootoosamy) impacted on key markets and hopes are high that Mauritius as a destination and Air Mauritius as a national airline will reclaim lost territory in the market place.