Air Seychelles registers $3.2m profit for 2014 |13 March 2015

Air Seychelles registered a net profit of US $3.2 million for the year 2014, the third consecutive year that the airline has registered a net profit.  

This was revealed to Seychelles NATION by the airline’s chief executive Manoj Papa yesterday morning at the Air Seychelles’ main office at Pointe Larue as he went through the latest financial report and the various developments within Air Seychelles.

Mr Papa, who completed a year as the CEO of Air Seychelles, made the announcement with much satisfaction: “2014 has been a year of financial stability. Our total revenue went up by 20% which is US $106.9 million; our passenger numbers went up by 20% totalling  412,088; our cargo tonnage increased by 34 % to 7,311 tonnes; delivery of two DHC-6 Twin Otters, brought forward from 2015, and one Airbus A320 and we have been awarded the Indian Ocean’s Leading Airline – Business Class and Best Cabin Crew.”

“We have a clear mandate which is to maximise profitability and become the economic enabler of the country by promoting tourism and trade. But we would not achieve this success without the full support of our shareholders and Air Seychelles staff,” said Mr Papa.

He noted that the result exceeds last year’s profit of US $3 million and reflects continued improvement in the airline’s key performance indicators, following Etihad Airways’ acquisition of a 40 per cent share in 2012 and the implementation of a turnaround plan to create a sustainable business.

With the profit registered, the question asked by employees is will there be an increase in salary? Explaining the process of salary calculation within the company, Mr Papa said: “The airline currently employs more than 650 Seychellois in an environment where commitment and performance are recognised, and where training and development is of the highest international standards.We are focusing mainly on training of our staff, exposing them to the best practice. It is a huge investment for us to send our staff for training. With the partnership with Etihad, we are making the most of their training facility instead of investing huge amount to have our own training facility. In 2013, we introduced the ‘I Achieve’ performance programme and we saw its maturity last year. Each individual within the company are assessed through this programme and receive the necessary coaching, training and mentoring to improve their performance.
Increase and bonuses will be based on this system and last year we saw a shift of 80% in the performance of our staff. The good thing about this is it is making Air Seychelles become a result driven organization.”

In line with this commitment, Air Seychelles introduced a Graduate Management Development Programme two years ago and now has 14 Seychellois graduate managers. The programme is run in Abu Dhabi with Etihad Airways and supervised by Air Seychelles. It includes formal training and enables graduate managers to work in many different areas of Etihad Airways.Cabin crew also benefit from world-class safety and service training at the Etihad Airways Training Academy in Abu Dhabi, alongside crew from Etihad Airways partner airlines around the world.

“The first group of graduates has returned to Air Seychelles with new skills and experiences and they have now taken up roles as managers in our rapidly evolving organisation where they are making an important contribution. The graduate programme is a tangible benefit of our partnership with Etihad Airways and demonstrates our commitment to bringing opportunities to Seychellois. Setting high standards through ongoing training and development is a defining feature of Air Seychelles as its reputation as an employer of choice grows in the country,” Mr Papa said.  

Last year, Air Seychelles started to fly to Dar-es-salaam, Antananarivo and Mumbai. Some criticised the decision of flying to Dar-es-salaam and Antananarivo saying these flights were not profitable or successful.

“When we set up a new destination, we do have a proper marketing research done and we work on demands. When we launched the two regional lines, we wanted to attract the large business community in Dar-es-Salaam and French tourism from Madagascar that connects through our flights. Any new destination needs time to develop and it takes time to grow. Air Seychelles is working closely with Air Madagascar to increase our marketing. I want to assure your readers that we are constantly monitoring where the demand is and keep promoting Seychelles as a tourism destination,” explained the CEO.

Other new development in flight is the introduction of a purely Seychellois dish on the Air Seychelles flights. “We introduced red snapper curry and this is by far our most popular dish,” said the CEO.

He also mentioned the partnership with various tourism organisations to increase sale on Air Seychelles thus an increase in the sale of hotel rooms.

“Recently we were able to fly 500 Chinese tourists to Seychelles and this is possible with the collaboration of the various stakeholders,” noted Mr Papa.

What next for our national carrier? “We will keep building on what we have established already. While the competitive environment remains challenging, these results show we are progressively consolidating and building on our achievements. I am very confident in the future of Air Seychelles; we have a committed team, we are building the long term capability of the Seychellois workforce and we have the strong support of our shareholders, the government of Seychelles and Etihad Airways.Our strategy is to use Seychelles’ unique position in the Indian Ocean to capture the strong travel flows between East Africa, the Western Indian Ocean, the UAE and the Indian subcontinent.

Joël Morgan, Seychelles Minister for Foreign Affairs and Transport and Air Seychelles’ board chairman, said in a press statement: “The continued strengthening of the business is very pleasing and is a result of an effective management team, committed workforce, and a strong and trusted partnership with Etihad Airways.

Currently Air Seychelles offers international flights to Abu Dhabi, Antanarivo, Dar-es-Salaam, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Mumbai and Paris and offers more than 200 domestic flights per week.

The airline’s codeshare partners include Etihad Airways, South African Airways, airberlin, Alitalia and Hong Kong Airlines, which feed traffic onto Air Seychelles’ network while providing greater convenience and choice for travellers.

During the year, Air Seychelles signed two new codeshare agreements - with Alitalia to Rome and Venice, and with Hong Kong Airlines to Bangkok.