MAIDEN, N.C., Nov. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Air T, Inc. reported consolidated net earnings of $847,000 ($0.35 per diluted share) for fiscal 2010's second quarter ended September 30, 2009, compared to consolidated net earnings of $1,322,000 ($0.55 per diluted share) for the second quarter of fiscal 2009. The Company also reported year-to-date earnings for the six months of $1,965,000 ($.81 per diluted share) compared to $2,662,000 ($1.10 per diluted share) for the similar fiscal 2009 period.
Consolidated revenues for fiscal 2010's second quarter were $20,142,000, a decrease of 16 percent compared to the similar 2009 fiscal quarter. Consolidated revenues for the first six months of the 2010 fiscal year were $39,090,000, also a 16 percent decrease from the prior year comparable period. Revenues for the quarter and first half of the fiscal year reflected a decrease in the delivery of domestic commercial deicers and military deicers as well as a decrease in revenues from the air cargo segment of the business as the company flew six fewer revenue aircraft in the current periods. The company did see a continued increase in revenues from Global Aviation Services. At Sept. 30, 2009, backlog was $13.6 million compared to $8.4 million at March 31, 2009 and $18.6 million at Sept. 30, 2008.
Walter Clark, chairman and chief executive officer of Air T, commented, "We have come off of our record revenue and earning pace of last year but have still managed to produce strong results in a challenging environment. We saw a slowdown in the demand for commercial deicers and have also felt the effect of the reduction in revenue aircraft that has taken place in our air cargo segment over the past year. We are encouraged by the United States Air Force placing the new deicer contract with us and we are also encouraged by the continuing growth of Global Aviation Services. Our equipment manufacturing subsidiary has developed several new products which we feel are timely to the market. The first is a lower cost deicer that should be a good fit for regional airlines and FBO deicing operations. The other new product development is a glycol recovery vehicle for use in conjunction with deicing operations to mitigate the environmental impact of the spent glycol. There are newly proposed federal clean water rules that would make recovery of a certain portion of the glycol mandatory."
