Air Mauritius held its annual general meeting of shareholders at the Grand Baie International conference centre on Thursday. The chairman, Kamal Taposeea told the board that they performed as a team despite challenges. He also lauded the national carrier’s performance for the financial year. He said, “The group posted profits of 10.3 million euros compared [...]

Air Mauritius held its annual general meeting of shareholders at the Grand Baie International conference centre on Thursday. The chairman, Kamal Taposeea told the board that they performed as a team despite challenges. He also lauded the national carrier’s performance for the financial year.

He said, “The group posted profits of 10.3 million euros compared to a loss of 6 million euros last year.”

The chief executive officer (CEO), Andre Viljoen highlighted the various challenges that the airline faced in the last financial year whereby moderate and unequal improvement in demand was offset by setbacks such as the exchange rate volatility in the euro, dollar and rupee as well as the volcanic ash and upheavals in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

He added, “The airline responded with a series of proactive measures which included the leadership alignment, restoring capacity, rebalancing growth in Asia and Africa, boosting revenues with aggressive sales campaigns and efficiency progarmmes.

He also stressed on the important challenges such as unequal growth coupled with volatility in Europe, ongoing high fuel prices, increasing airline competition and increased government and airport taxes. These challenges, he said, are already being felt by the airline industry whose profits are forecasted to fall to $4 billion from previous year’s $18 billion.

He also said that the tourism industry is already feeling the pinch, which in turn is affecting the airline. He added a series of measures such as developing new sales channels especially in e-commerce, improving efficiency with the best industry practices as well as improving time performance, are being implemented.

The board also re-elected members such as Rajkamal Taposeea, Kemchand Beegoo, Philippe Espitalier-Noel, Raj Ringadoo, Suresh Seebaluck and Aisha Timol, among others.

The shareholders also elected Gerard Espitalier-Noel as board director.