Royal Jordanian lifts passenger numbers

Royal Jordanian logged a record number of passengers transported on board its aircraft in July, a 13.3 percent increase over the same month last year, the carrier said on Tuesday. RJ carried a total of 373,000 passengers last month and president/CEO Hussein Dabbas said that the passenger number was the highest registered by the company in its history. The seat factor also went up to 81 percent July leading to a net profit of JD5m ($7.05m) for the month.Dabbas said that the company's operational revenues in July 2011 went up to JD78.5m in July, an 11.6 percent growth on July 2010.However, operational costs increased by 22.7 percent due to a 51 percent surge in the fuel bill, the airline said in a statement.According to Dabbas, other operational indicators also saw growth last month with flight frequencies up by 9.8 percent.In the first half of 2011, Royal Jordanian faced big challenges resulting from the steep rise in oil prices and the political events that are still going on in many of the region's countries.The fuel expenses for the first six months of this year reached JD135m, against JD93m and JD63m paid in the same period in 2010 and 2009 respectively. The political turmoil in the Arab region led RJ to cancel 677 round-trip flights and to combine others in view of the regression in travel and tourism demand, particularly from Europe. In addition, operations to Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, were halted and traffic to and from destinations in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Tunis and others were negatively affected. From / Arabian Business News