Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA) said Wednesday half-year net profit soared 61.6 percent on firm travel demand, although it admitted Tokyo's territorial dispute with Beijing hurt its China business.
The carrier's net profit came to 36.93 billion yen ($465 million) in the six months to September as revenue grew 6.9 percent year-on-year to 753.21 billion yen. Operating profit climbed 50.2 percent to 75.30 billion yen.
Business demand was solid while leisure travel recovered from a slump after the March 2011 disaster, ANA said.
The quake and tsunami sparked the world's worst nuclear accident in a generation, dealing a severe blow to tourism in Japan.
Despite the robust half-year growth, ANA cut its full-year revenue estimate to 1.47 trillion yen from the 1.50 trillion yen it expected in April.
"There is a risk the Japanese economy will be subjected to downward pressure due to the growing sense of a slowdown in the global economy... rising oil prices, volatile exchange rates and anti-Japanese demonstrations in China," the firm said in a statement.
"Considering the impact of the anti-Japanese demonstrations in China on international passenger revenue, operating revenue is expected to be approximately 30 billion yen less" than the earlier projection, ANA said.
ANA said in September 40,000 seat reservations had been cancelled on its Japan-China flights over a three-month period, as the row over a group of islands in the East China Sea triggered anti-Japan rallies across China.
But the company said efforts to cut costs and rein in expenses enabled it to keep its full-year profit forecasts unchanged -- a net profit of 40 billion yen and operating profit of 110 billion yen.
Last month the company said it would top up its order of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, adding 11 more aircraft to the 55 it was already expecting.
The aircraft order -- with a list price of $2.68 billion -- came as the company was bracing for new competition from a burgeoning low-cost sector.
The carrier, Japan's biggest by passenger numbers, said all of the new aircraft will be B787-9 and are expected to be delivered between 2018 and 2021.
ANA said in August that it was back in the black, logging a net profit of 668 million yen in its fiscal first quarter to June and reversing a year-earlier loss, thanks to increased travel demand.
It had seen an 8.1 billion yen operating loss in the first quarter of last year as passenger demand collapsed in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake-tsunami and meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
But cost-cutting and a recovery in international travel demand helped the airline post a record operating profit of $1.2 billion in the fiscal year ended in March.
