China Southern sees sunnier skies in H2

After a loss in the first six months, China Southern Airlines Co, Asia's biggest carrier by passenger numbers, forecast a better second half as economic growth picks up and the yuan's volatility eases, Chairman Si Xianmin said.

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The company's American depositary receipts rose 1.1 percent on Wednesday in New York to a five-month high, paring this year's slump to 11 percent. The Bloomberg China-US Equity Index slipped 0.5 percent to 112.14, the lowest level in two weeks.

China Southern, which is the most reliant on the domestic market among the nation's biggest carriers, is accelerating its overseas expansion to help improve its "unbalanced" network structure, Si said. The carrier started a Guangzhou-to-New York route on Wednesday.

The chairman said the airline's first-half loss came as a 2.4 percent depreciation in the yuan eroded industry profits while a slowdown in Asia's biggest economy cut traffic.

"We've seen a loss in the first half mainly because the economic slowdown has caused growth in the aviation market to slow," Si said in an interview with reporters on Wednesday in New York.

"We forecast our second-half performance will surely be better than the first half. We don't foresee big volatility in the foreign exchange rate of the yuan versus the dollar in the second half."

China Southern's ADRs rose to $17.65, the highest price since Feb 20. The stock has rallied 18 percent since the end of June as the yuan has strengthened 0.6 percent versus the dollar, while the country's manufacturing expanded in July at the fastest pace in more than two years.

Ticket sales for the new route linking China Southern's home hub of Guangzhou to New York City shows a load factor, or seat occupancy rate, of more than 80 percent in both directions, according to Si. This is the company's third direct flight to North America after Los Angeles and Vancouver.

China Southern launched flights from Wuhan to Moscow on July 30, the first direct route linking Central China with Russia, according to a release on its website.

Revenue from major international flights has "obviously" increased this year, Si said, adding the airline aims to increase its investments on overseas markets to more than 30 percent of total spending, from a current level of about 27 percent.

International flights accounted for 16.8 percent of China Southern's total passenger revenue last year, compared with 80.7 percent for domestic flights, according to the carrier's 2013 annual report. The company's fleet, Asia's biggest, will rise to more than 600 aircraft by the end of August, Si said.

The airline said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange July 11 that it may incur a loss of as much as 1.1 billion yuan ($178 million) in the first six months of this year, compared with a 302 million yuan profit in the year-earlier period.