Even with record profit Jazeera Airways stays on its new course of limited growth

What a difference two years can make. After a dismal 2009 and 2010, Jazeera Airways Group has spent the past 24 months undergoing one of the most comprehensive restructuring and turn-around programmes in the industry, transforming its results from deep losses to record profits and marking out a clear path for a sustainable future, aided by its higher-margin Sahaab leasing division that generated 52% of profits in 2011.

Following expansion and development since the carrier launched in Oct-2005, Jazeera had been forced to abandon its second base at Dubai and was struggling in its home market at Kuwait. The local market, opened up by the Kuwait government with its open skies policy, was characterised by overcapacity, low load factors and stagnant yields. During 2009, 44% of all seats operating into Kuwait were unfilled. In 2010, 51% were empty.