Discount airline Jetstar has lost ground in New Zealand, while claiming better yields on key routes, as its parent Qantas plunged into the red after slashing the value of its international fleet.
Jetstar had 20.7 per cent of New Zealand's domestic market at June 30, down from 22.4 per cent a year earlier, Qantas said on Thursday when releasing its annual result.
Passenger numbers dropped 7.7 per cent to 1.72 million and revenue passenger kilometres fell 6.2 per cent to 1.13 million. Capacity shrank 4.5 per cent to 1.42m available seat kilometres.
Jetstar had a strong and improving second-half performance leading into the 2015 financial year and had "strong yield improvement on key routes," according to presentation slides accompanying the release.
Qantas didn't break out any financial figures for the domestic New Zealand service, but the discount airline reported a loss before interest and tax of $A116 million ($NZ129.38m) in the 12 months ended June 30, on a two per cent fall in revenue to $A3.22 billion.
The Australian group made a loss of $A2.84 billion as it wrote down the value of its international fleet by $A2.56 billion, faced fleet restructuring costs of $A394 million and redundancy and restructuring costs of $A428 million.
Qantas' fortunes contrast with those of trans-Tasman rival Air New Zealand, which on Wednesday reported its third year of profit growth and doubled its annual return to shareholders with an unexpected special dividend.
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