China Southern Airlines (CSA) said its plunge into the red in the first half of this year was a direct result of Asia's financial turmoil and the mainland's slower economy.
The mainland's largest airline had a loss of 72.27 million yuan (about HK$67.25 million) in the period, compared with a 409.33 million yuan profit a year earlier.
Turnover declined 7.8 per cent from a year earlier to 5.74 billion yuan.
Losses per share were two fen, compared with earnings per share of 19 fen a year ago. No interim dividend was proposed.
'Our result reflects the extremely difficult operating environment,' chairman Yu Yanen said.
The weakening mainland economy put pressure on the aviation industry, he said, cutting into passenger load factors and passenger yields for international, Hong Kong and regional routes.
In the half, CSA's passenger load factor was 60.2 per cent, 6.1 percentage points lower than a year ago, while its passenger yield dropped 12.4 per cent to 57 fen per revenue passenger kilometre.