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Garuda Indonesia plans to work its fleet harder, increase oil hedging and add more international flights to help return to profit this year, the airline's CE said Thursday. The carrier last month said it was targeting a small net profit of US$8.9m this year after posting a $222m loss in the first 9 months of 2017. Garuda is due to release its full-year 2017 results later this month. Garuda CE Pahala Mansury said domestic ticket prices were improving as rival Lion Air slowed its rate of capacity growth, but higher fuel prices and airport charges meant a strong focus on costs would be needed to break even. Garuda plans to increase domestic capacity by 12% to 15% and international capacity by more than 25% this year despite having deferred deliveries of new Boeing and Airbus jets. <br/>

Korean Air Lines said Thursday it swung to a net profit in 2017, after posting a net loss a year earlier, on increased passenger demand and foreign-exchange gains. For the whole year, Korean Air shifted to a net profit of KRW801.9b (US$737m) from a net loss of KRW556.84b in 2016, the company said. The net result was attributable to the company's route diversification, meant to reduce the impact of declining number of travellers to and from China triggered by a diplomatic row, and rise in delivery of high-end semiconductors, the airline said. The South Korean won's strength against the US dollar also helped the bottom line. The dollar fell to 1,071.4 won at the end of December last year from 1,208.5 a year earlier, driving up foreign exchange gains, the company said. <br/>