The main activity of CSA - air transport - placed revenues in the amount of 8.50 thousand million CZK, which is also the best result in the history of CSA air transport and indicates a year-to-year increase of 14.7 percent. The available transport capacity in the indicator, i.e. available transport activity in available tonne-kilometres (atkm), showed a year-to-year increase of only 4.6 percent. Another positive point is the improvement of the qualitative numerical index of the available seat capacity in 1997 to 66.8% as compared to 66.0% in 1996. From the point of view of the quality of CSA transport, the continuous decrease in the value of average delays in minutes per CSA departure in the past years is very encouraging. In 1997, the company had an average delay of 9.90 minutes per departure as compared to 11.88 minutes in 1996 and 14.54 minutes in 1995. This positive trend is supported by the stellar position of CSA in the evaluation of European airline companies associated in AEA (27 most important air carriers in Europe): this indicator has named CSA as a frontrunner amongst the top fourth of the best carriers over the individual quarters of 1997.

In non-transport activities the company showed revenues of 1.38 thousand million CZK, which is a year-to-year improvement of 254.5 million CZK, i.e. an increase of a total 22.6 percent. CSA activities in the field of passenger and aircraft handling, duty-free sales at the airport and on board, external aircraft maintenance and catering reached the highest level of year-to-year increase. Non-transport activities represented 12.1 percent of all company income and remarkably added to CSA profitability in 1997.

CSA provides its services in the environment of the global, highly competitive environment of the civil aviation market. The strategy of CSA joint-stock company growth must start from both creative procedures and market-aggressive solutions. The basic elements of the CSA strategy must underline our obligation to innovate as well as to increase the competitiveness of CSA on the market while diversifying the activities of our company.

In the area of the main activity of CSA - air transport - an emphasis has been put on updating the definition of territories, markets and clientele CSA wishes to focus upon. When formulating this strategy, it is necessary to start from the subjective/internal limitations of CSA as an air carrier, and on the other hand, from objective conditions which are set up by the air transport market both abroad and in the Czech Republic, especially by transport streams of passengers, market size and the purchasing power of citizens. In the upcoming years, the tasks aimed at privatising CSA and engaging CSA in an existing alliance of airline carriers will take the highest priority and have decisive relevance for the further existence and development of CSA in general.

Further development of the company's business ventures in the realm of non-air traffic activities is desirable and, indeed, crucial. This means the pertinent diversification of the company's business practices which in turn bring to CSA the desired effects. This further development may, in principle, follow several levels, which are defined by a request for the highest possible effectiveness of a certain activity on one hand, and by its long-term competitive development in the market environment on the other. In principle, it will be a search for an optimum solution between the variants of organisational structure, i.e. placement of a certain activity inside CSA or its organisational independence as a limited or joint-stock company. Other variants are necessarily to be sought at the conceptual level with an eye to develop these activities (CSA as a sole owner or finding a respectable partner for the given activity).