China Southern Airlines foresees loss for first quarter

China Southern Airlines Co Ltd estimates that the company will suffer a total loss ranging from 300 million yuan ($48.21 million) to 350 million yuan in the first quarter of 2014, according to a filing on Shanghai Stock Exchange Tuesday.

The company attributed the deficit to currency exchange rate losses due to the devaluation of the yuan this year.

The yuan depreciated against the US dollar by 2.64 percent in the first quarter, the longest yuan depreciation period since 2005, media reports said.

The company gained 57 million yuan profit in the first quarter of last year, according to the filing.

In 2013, China Southern Airlines gained a 1.9 billion yuan profit, down 27.89 percent year-on-year.

The company said in the 2013 financial report that the domestic market faced intensive competition due to oversupply in the industry.

The country's other two leading airlines Air China Ltd and China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd have also suffered profit decreases in the past three years.

Experts said the profit decline is due to plane ticket price reductions and slow economic growth, news portal 163.com reported Tuesday.

China's aviation industry may not see any improvement in 2014 due to the growing aviation capacity and weak market need, the report said.