Indoor Skydive Australia (ASX:IDZ) investors can hold back from throwing themselves out of a plane, as the company posted a narrower loss this year.

The group, which operates flight chambers in Australia under the iFly brand, announced a $891,290 loss for 2016-17, the lowest loss it’s printed since listing in 2013 and down 41 per cent on last year.

The indoor skydiving tunnels allow “human flight within a safe environment” and are mainly used by tourists, enthusiasts and military.

The group operates three iFly indoor skydiving facilities in Sydney, Perth and the Gold Coast — and is expanding into Asia with an initial overseas facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Beyond that, expansion is focused in South East Asia, Hong Kong and China, Indoor’s chief executive Wayne Jones told Stockhead.

“We can’t say exactly  yet where the next sites will be, but there will be more news going out soon.

“It’s all about exploration. It takes a while to find the right locations and partners. We’ve been spending a lot of time exploring the right regions and cities and sites within those cities.”

Indoor today reported a steep jump in revenue from $8.2 million to $12.3 million.

But the international expansion caused costs to jump as well.

Indoor paid $12 million to suppliers and staff last year, up from $7.9 million. Cash reserves fell from $2.6 million to $1.7 million.

Sales and marketing accounted for $4.7 million (up from $3.1 million) as the company launched a new global brand, AirRider, to crack the Asian market.

“Definitely I believe we will be profitable in 2018,” Mr Jones said. “The three Australian wind tunnels in the second half of the year were profitable.

“We have also been investing a lot of money in IT systems so when we do operate off-shore, we have multi-lingual, multi-currency capable systems.

Technology advances would bring cost reductions, Mr Jones said.

“As the technology gets better we will see efficiencies [such as] lower power costs.

“The technology is so advanced we can use it for training, so we have military and skydivers because it’s exactly the same feeling as free fall.”

Wind speeds could hit 300 km/h in the flight chambers — large glass cylinders as high as 5m that sit on top of an inverted funnel.

A huge volume of air is compressed in the funnel and pushed up into the chamber at high speeds.

“But we can slow the wind right down and have kids as young as three and grandmas and grandpas,” Mr Jones said. “We have had three 93-year olds.”

Indoor Skydive Australia is worth just under $33 million. Shares were up slightly to 24c in afternoon trade.