China Southern says full-year profits jump 30 pct, below expectations

China Southern Airlines Thursday reported a 29.9% rise in 2016 net profit, below analysts' expectations, as a weaker yuan put a dent on strong domestic demand for overseas travel. China's largest carrier by passenger numbers reported profits attributable to shareholders of 5.06b yuan ($734.50m), its strongest performance since 2011. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast reported net income of 5.47b yuan. Revenue rose 2.95% year-on-year to 114.8b yuan, against a 4.75% rise in passenger traffic, it said. It suffered 3.27b yuan in foreign exchange losses due to the weakening yuan. Its yield per revenue passenger kilometre fell 5.66%, after the airline grew passenger capacity by 8.65% over the year. Chinese airlines have been aggressively ordering new aircraft to take advantage of strong demand for outbound travel, which has outpaced domestic growth. However, the loans to purchase the aircraft are mainly denominated in US dollars, causing them losses as the yuan depreciated against the dollar.<br/>