China Southern Airlines, the nation's largest carrier, reported a 95.3 percent decline in first half's net profit despite the increased passenger traffic, the company said Sunday.

Although the passenger number rose by 10.7 percent in the first six months from a year ago, the company failed to repeat a 2.64 billion yuan of foreign- exchange gains of last year as yuan kept little changed in the first half of this year.

The company carried 31 million passengers in the first half.

(Xinhua News Agency August 31, 2009)