Jazeera Airways holds AGM; 10% bonus shares approved 

(MENAFN - Arab Times) Award winning Jazeera Airways Group today held its Annual General Meeting of Shareholders at the company's headquarters in Freedom Town, Kuwait where shareholders approved the Board's recommendation to issue a 10 percent bonus shares to shareholders following a record-breaking year.

For the year 2011, the company earned record KD 10.6 million in net profit with an earnings per share of 48 fils, a record KD 57.8 million in revenue, up 36 percent from 2010, and a record KD 14.9 million in operating profit.

FY2011 Financial Highlights:
* FY2011 revenue of KD 57.8 million, up 36 percent from FY2010's KD 42.6 million
* FY2011 operating profit of KD 14.9 million, vs KD 1.0 million in 2010
* FY2011 net profit of KD 10.6 million, vs FY2010's net loss of KD 2.8 million
* FY2011 average yield: 46 percent

FY2011 Operational Highlights:
* Flown passengers: 1.2 million
* #1 in on-time performance in the Middle East in 2011 as per flightstats.com
* #1 airline between Kuwait and Alexandria, Luxor, Aleppo, Assiut, Sharm El Sheikh, Sohag, DeirEzzor and Damascus
* #1 Kuwaiti airline between Kuwait and Beirut, Amman, Mashhad, Bahrain and Dubai

The results reflect the success of the company's Turn-Around Plan that was implemented in second quarter 2010 and had steered the company into continued profitability for the last six quarters.
Established in 2005, Jazeera Airways Group is a Kuwait Stock Exchange-listed company with over 12,000 shareholders. The company has a fleet of 12 fully-owned Airbus A320s, evenly distributed between its airline business, Jazeera Airways, and its leasing-arm Sahaab Aircraft Leasing. Sahaab has assets placed with Virgin America, SriLankan Airlines, and Jazeera Airways.

Travel
Jazeera Airways Group Chairman Marwan Boodai said, "The year 2011 was a record-breaking year despite the continued over capacity, the impact of political unrest on travel within our network, and an increasing fuel cost. Jazeera Airways today has a solid network, increasing load factors, reduced cost, high aircraft utilization, in addition to an aircraft leasing arm with assets deployed across the globe, from the US to the Middle East to Asia. Jazeera Airways Group today has a sustainable business model that has generated sustainable profitability quarter-on-quarter for six quarters in-a-row."

Speaking to shareholders, Boodai gave an overview of the company's focus areas and milestones in 2011. He said, "We had three priorities in 2011. First, building on the momentum of record-breaking returns seen in Q3 and Q4 2010.Second, successfully mitigating the impact of the political unrest on the business.And third, capturing a strong market share on the Cairo-Kuwait route that was launched in May 2011."

To secure the momentum, the company concentrated on optimizing its flight schedules to the benefit of passengers while maintaining high aircraft utilization. The company also supported its operation with continued investment in marketing, advertising, and experience-enhancing initiatives, such as increased baggage allowance for business class and changing in-flight meals on a monthly basis. While at the same time, boosting yields without cannibalizing load factor.

The second priority was to reduce the impact of the political unrest on the business, first in Egypt then Bahrain and later in Syria. The company activated the Jazeera Airways Emergency Response Team (ERT) with round-the-clock monitoring of each situation keeping a close eye on the developments that might impact safety of the airline's crew, passengers, and assets at all times. To reduce the commercial impact on the business and compensate for the temporary drop in demand, capacity was redeployed by increasing flights to other cities that witnessed a surge in demand as alternative destinations. Specifically Dubai, Jeddah and Cairo.

The company's third priority for the year was to make sure that the newly launched and long-awaited Kuwait-Cairo route was kicked off to a great start by focusing marketing activities on re-building demand in a post-revolution market. The results were very positive. Jazeera Airways secured an 11 percent market share in the first two weeks, 23 percent market share in the first four weeks, and maintained an 18 percent market share during the slow post-summer travel season.

Boodai said, "2011 was a challenging year but a record-breaking year as well for Jazeera Airways. Our priorities for 2012 are to grow load factor while maintaining high yields and we believe we will be able to achieve this goal because we have the right network with the right capacity, the right product for our market, and a tried and tested team that has successfully navigated the company through the last two years with flying colors."

The company's outlook for 2012 continues to be positive in-line with a growing Kuwaiti economy, which continues to witness higher incomes despite international and regional economic pressures. Boodai said, "The year 2011 witnessed varying external challenges, from multiple revolutions taking place in our network to fuel price hikes at both ends of the year, despite that 2011 was a record-breaking year for us.

As the region returns to calm we look forward to the continuation of our strong performance."

Following the AGM, the Board held an Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders to gain approval for amending the articles of association to take into account the change in capital resulting from the bonus share issuance. Shareholders approved the change of the company's capital from KD22 million to KD24.2 million by issuing 22 million ordinary shares (the bonus shares) at a nominal value of 100 fils to the share. (1,000 fils = 1 Kuwaiti Dinar).