Air China: management discussion of Feb-2010 operating data
15-Mar-2010 In February 2010, passenger traffic on international, domestic and regional routes maintained high year-over-year growth, supported by demand during the Chinese New Year period.
Traffic on domestic and regional routes continued to trend up compared to January 2010, while international routes saw a decline. Momentum in cargo traffic continued to strengthen year-over-year, despite heading south month-over-month during the seasonally low period.
Passenger capacity, measured in Available Seat Kilometers (ASK), grew 13.4% year-over-year. Passenger traffic, measured by Revenue Passenger Kilometers (RPK), saw 16.6% growth in February. Capacity on international routes increased by 10.2% year-over-year, while RPK grew by 21.6%. Domestic and regional capacity rose by 14.0% and 37.9% year-over-year, respectively, with RPK up 12.1% and 55.5%, respectively. The passenger load factor was 79%, up 2.2 percentage points year-over-year. The international and regional passenger load factors increased by 7.7 and 8.8 percentage points to 82.0% and 77.6% respectively. The domestic passenger load factor declined by 1.3 percentage points to 77.4%. During 13 to19 February, the Golden Week of the Chinese New Year holiday, passenger traffic rose by 15% compared to the Chinese New Year in 2009 and the overall passenger load factor was up 2 percentage points. (Please note these figures do not include Air Macau.)
Cargo capacity, measured in Available Freighter Tonne Kilometres (AFTK), increased by 27.4% year-over-year. Cargo traffic, measured in Tonnage Carried, and Revenue Freighter Tonne Kilometres (RFTK) grew by 33.0% and 50.0% respectively, compared with February 2010. The cargo load factor advanced to 52.7%, an increase of 7.9 percentage points year-over-year. The growth mainly came from the recovery of international cargo carriage.
The Company launched one domestic and one international route in February: the twice-weekly Chengdu-Zhanjiang route started on February 10, while the twice-weekly Shanghai-Chengdu-Bangalore (India) route commenced operation on February 27.
In February, the Company's average jet fuel purchase price at international airports was RMB4,844 per tonne, and the average purchase price of jet fuel for international flights at the top six Chinese airports was RMB5,258 per tonne, representing a 36% and 34% increase year-over-year, respectively. The Company's average jet fuel purchase price for domestic flights was RMB5,639 per tonne, an increase of 29% compared with February last year.
The Company purchased a total of 265,800 tonnes of jet fuel during the month at an average price of RMB5,379 per tonne, a year-over-year increase of 31%.
In February, the Company made the following adjustments to jet fuel surcharges:
|
Effective Date (Based on Ticket Issue Date) |
Route |
Previous Rate (Per Head Per Sector) |
New Rate (Per Head Per Sector) |
|
Feb 1 |
USD20 |
USD23 |
|
|
RMB600 |
RMB750 |
During the month, Air China added one A321 and two B737-800 aircraft. As of February 28, the Company operated a fleet of 268 aircraft.