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New Delhi - India's Jet Airways, partly owned by Gulf carrier Etihad, announced Tuesday a record quarterly loss, hit by rising costs in the country's fiercely competitive airline market.
The country's second-largest airline by market share reported its net loss jumped to 21.54bn rupees ($366m) for the fourth quarter ended March 31 from 4.96bn rupees in the same period last year.
The company, which in April 2013 sold a 24% stake to Etihad Airways for $379m, is set to see rivalry increase further in the Indian market which has a dozen main players.
The investment by the fast-growing Abu Dhabi-based carrier was intended to give Etihad a bigger foothold in the Indian market and compete with regional rivals which transport a large slice of Indian passenger traffic to the Gulf and beyond.
Etihad's purchase of a minority stake in Jet came after the government relaxed foreign ownership rules to allow overseas carriers to buy up to 48% of local airlines.
All of India's airlines have been reporting losses apart from market leader IndiGo.
Malaysia's AirAsia, Asia's biggest budget airline, will start flying in the domestic aviation sector in a joint venture with India's Tata group.
The Tata group has also set up a joint venture with Singapore Airlines which will initially be a domestic airline and then start flying internationally.
Two new airlines are set to start operations in coming months.
Jet, which has been flying without a chief executive since the start of the year, also announced it had recruited an aviation veteran, Cramer Ball, as its new head.
Jet said 46-year-old Ball, who is a certified accountant, has extensive experience in the aviation sector.
"He has previously held senior positions at Ansett Australia, Etihad Airways, Gulf Air, Kendell Airline and Qantas. He was also formerly the CEO of Air Seychelles," Jet said.
Jet said its net loss for the year to March 31, 2014 had ballooned by over five times to 41.3bn rupees from the 7.8bn rupees loss it reported for the previous year.
The company has not reported an annual profit for seven years.
Earnings of the country's airlines have been hit by expensive fuel prices and slower passenger growth as India faces its deepest economic slowdown in a decade.
Jet, founded by former travel agent Naresh Goyal, said costs soared by 29% during the quarter from a year earlier while it took a one-off seven-billion-rupee charge on its subsidiary, Jetlite.
