Japan Airlines Co (JAL) on Wednesday predicted its net profit would drop 30 per cent from a year earlier to ¥115 billion ($1.1 billion) in the current financial year due to growing fuel costs and severe competition.
The carrier estimated an operating profit of ¥140 billion for the year through March 2015, down 16 per cent from the previous year, while sales were expected to rise 3 per cent to ¥1.35 trillion.
“Because of the escalation of fuel costs due to the weak yen may prevail and competition may intensify in both international and domestic market,” JAL said.
For the previous financial year, JAL posted a net profit of ¥166 billion, down 3.2 per cent from a year ago and its operating profit declined 14.6 per cent to ¥166 billion. Sales grew 5.7 per cent to ¥1.3 trillion.
In the January-to-March quarter, JAL logged a net profit of ¥43 billion, up 38 per cent from the same period last year and an operating profit of ¥29 billion, down 21 per cent from a year earlier. Sales rose 7.6 per cent to ¥319 billion.
JAL was relisted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in September 2012, after it had liabilities of ¥2.3 trillion in January 2010 in Japan’s biggest corporate failure outside the financial services sector.