KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Group Bhd dipped into a quarterly loss this year to RM51.44 million for the third quarter ended September 2019, against a net profit of RM915.88 million in the same period last year.
This was mainly due to a RM238 million fair value loss on derivatives and a RM112 million foreign exchange loss.
In the third quarter last year, the company reported a RM171 million gain on disposal of an associate.
Total group revenue for the airline business for the third quarer grew 17 per cent to RM2.95 billion, from RM2.53 billion recorded last year.
The double-digit growth in revenue was driven by a 20 per cent year-on-year increase in passengers carried to 13 million.
Ancillary revenue also grew by 26 per cent year-on-year to RM686 million, with traditional airline ancillary revenue up 16 per cent while non-airline ancillary revenue up 72 per cent.
AirAsia said it remained positive that its core performance would be positive in the last quarter of the year.
"As the group reposition the business to adapt to the evolving business environment along with new accounting treatment and restructured aircraft ownership, we look forward to a better year in 2020," it said in a statement.
For the airline business, AirAsia said load factors and fares for the rest of 2019 are expected to remain strong in a seasonally strong period.
"Our strategy remains to gain dominance in the countries we operate in, especially within the Asean region, and building tourism in lower tier cities," it said.
"We continue to work on reducing costs including investment in digitalization which we believe will help reduce costs in the long run," it added.