newstodate.aero
Sep 06, 2016 (newstodate): The leisure carrier group Small Planet Airlines reports rising revenues but steeply falling profits during this year's H1.
The main reasons behind revenue growth was increased activity in Lithuania, Poland, and the United Kingdom, launch of flights under the German AOC, and return to the French market, the H1 report says.
Over the period of six months Small Planet Airlines added six new aircraft growing the fleet to 17 Airbus A320 and four Airbus A321 aircraft.
The rapid growth and record investments in fleet expansion and aircraft upgrade program however contributed to Small Planet Airlines' profitability decrease, lowering its gross profit margin lowered from 9.8 percent in H1 2015 to just one percent in H1 2016.
In its report, the group however displays a unique and commendable sense of self-appraisal in explaining the steep decline in profitability.
-Unfortunately, four out of six six new aircraft in our fleet were delivered very late and this was the main reason behind disappointing on-time performance and profitability. This delay was a product of our planning mistakes, further amplified by unscheduled maintenance required on the aircraft.
-Weve learned an expensive but valuable lesson and we believe this was a one-off event which we are able to prevent from happening in the future. We expect the Q3 profitability to be a bit down as well due to the same reasons, and the Q4 to be already in line with that of the last year, Vytautas Kaikaris, Small Planet Group CEO, says in his comments to the report.
The main reasons behind revenue growth was increased activity in Lithuania, Poland, and the United Kingdom, launch of flights under the German AOC, and return to the French market, the H1 report says.
Over the period of six months Small Planet Airlines added six new aircraft growing the fleet to 17 Airbus A320 and four Airbus A321 aircraft.
The rapid growth and record investments in fleet expansion and aircraft upgrade program however contributed to Small Planet Airlines' profitability decrease, lowering its gross profit margin lowered from 9.8 percent in H1 2015 to just one percent in H1 2016.
In its report, the group however displays a unique and commendable sense of self-appraisal in explaining the steep decline in profitability.
-Unfortunately, four out of six six new aircraft in our fleet were delivered very late and this was the main reason behind disappointing on-time performance and profitability. This delay was a product of our planning mistakes, further amplified by unscheduled maintenance required on the aircraft.
-Weve learned an expensive but valuable lesson and we believe this was a one-off event which we are able to prevent from happening in the future. We expect the Q3 profitability to be a bit down as well due to the same reasons, and the Q4 to be already in line with that of the last year, Vytautas Kaikaris, Small Planet Group CEO, says in his comments to the report.