July 3 (SeeNews) - Flag carrier Air Serbia has said it booked a net profit of 15.7 million euro ($18.3 million) in 2017, up from 900,000 euro in the previous year.
In its fourth year of operation, the airline’s total operating income reached 288 million euro, operating expenses decreased by 7%, while sales revenue rose by 4%, Air Serbia said in a statement on Monday.
Air Serbia handled 2.62 million passengers in 2017, in line with the previous year, while passenger carrying capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs), increased by 4% to 4.24 billion, the company said.
The average seat load factor rose by 1 percentage point to 73.4% in 2017 despite the enhanced capacity following the introduction of new Recaro seats into Airbus fleet cabin, Air Serbia added.
"Air Serbia managed to maintain its strong passenger numbers from the year before. Both financial and operational performance in 2017 set a strong base for us going forward. Despite intensified competition and other unfavourable circumstances in the market, ever since 2013, we continue to improve our results. We started 2018 with the same goal – to push forward on all the fronts, which will hopefully lead us to even better years ahead," the CEO of Air Serbia, Duncan Naysmith, said in the statement.
A record 749 flights were operated in 2017 by Air Serbia's charter unit Aviolet, which serviced 174,000 passengers to popular destinations in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Italy and Tunisia.
Air Serbia continued to post double-digit annual growth by shipping 6,158 tonnes of freight and mail in 2017, equating to a 25.3% increase in total uplift over 2016.
($ = 0.857474 euro)