Seat capacity up, passenger numbers up, load factors up. That was the core of 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 load factors across the fleet rose by 3 percent to reach 75.1 percent. Revenues also 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 in spite of increased competition for flights to the island.
On the upside, aggressive promotional campaigns, undertaken hand in hand with a re-invigorated Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority has 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 marketplace.
