Things are looking up
QANTAS carried 7 per cent more passengers in April compared with the prior corresponding month.
But the airline group, comprising the mainline Qantas operations and low-cost offshoot Jetstar, cautioned that comparisons with the prior year were affected by one-off events.
Qantas's international operations in April 2010 were affected by flight cancellations from the Icelandic volcano eruptions that closed European airspace.
Qantas international flights carried 509,000 passengers in April 2011, up 7.4 per cent from the prior corresponding period, the figures show.
With Jetstar, Qantas said the figures were affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Jetstar's international operations carried 9.9 per cent more passengers in April 2011 compared with April 2010.
Jetstar Asia, which operates the Singapore-Auckland service that began earlier this year, reported a 10.2 percentage point decline in revenue seat factor in April to 74 per cent.
"Jetstar Asia commenced daily A330 services from Singapore to Auckland in mid-March 2011," Qantas's monthly report said.
"The revenue seat factor for this service is in line with expectations for a new route.
"The relatively long sector length of the route has had a significant impact on Jetstar Asia's operating statistics."
For the financial year to April, Qantas said passenger numbers across the group were up 8.1 per cent compared with the prior corresponding period.
Yields for domestic operations across Qantas, QantasLink and Jetstar domestic were up 1.6 per cent from a year ago, while international services flown by Qantas and Jetstar were 8.7 per cent higher.