(Alliance News) - African airline Fastjet PLC said Friday its loss deepened significantly in 2018 as one-off costs hurt, despite revenue surging as it expanded its operations.
In 2018, pretax loss deepened to USD57.8 million from USD11.2 million the year prior. This was despite revenue rising to USD38.5 million from USD14.4 million the year before.
Profit performance was primarily hurt by a USD22.1 million exceptional charges related to shares transactions, impairments and other one-off costs.
"2018 saw the successful completion of the stabilization process we embarked upon in 2016," Fastjet Chief Executive Officer Nico Bezuidenhout said.
"It was a year during which substantial changes were implemented which will have long-lasting, structural benefits for Fastjet. Most notably, Fastjet withdrew from Tanzania - a market that had been consistently loss-making over a number of years - as well as completing its fleet transition, further reducing overhead costs, substantially reducing long-term debt, and replacing and enhancing our financial and management information core systems", Bezuidenhout continued.
"2018 also saw a strong performance from Fastjet's first full year of operations in Mozambique, the exercise of a purchase option that allows the group entry into the South African market through the acquisition of a shareholding in a profitable business in this country, and increased seat occupancy rates and revenue levels in our Zimbabwean business," Bezuidenhout added. "These efforts required commitment from all our stakeholders and significant time, effort and financial resource for which the management and board of Fastjet is thankful to our employees, investors, suppliers and customers."
"The Fastjet of today is a fundamentally different business to that of eighteen months ago, as evidenced by the group achieving operational profitability in two of its three markets for the last quarter of 2018," Bezuidenhout continued. "We remain focused on managing the macro-economic challenges confronting the business and on improving Fastjet's performance still further."
Shares in Fastjet were 1.5% lower at 1.60 pence in London on Friday.
