Spicejet Q2 profit jumps 79% on higher bookings

NEW DELHI: Spicejet Ltd’s fiscalsecond quarter profit rose 79% as it filled more seats and improved passenger yield.

Net profit rose to ₹105.3 crore in the quarter ended 30 September from ₹58.9 crore in the year earlier, the company said in a statement on Monday. This is SpiceJet’s highest profit reported in the second quarter since it started operations in 2005.

Revenue rose 30% to ₹ 1,838.69 crore from ₹1,415.83 crore. Expenses increased about 28% to ₹1,734.1 crore.

Spicejet was also able to get on average 3% more fares from passengers at ₹3,460. Flight occupancy rose to 93% in the September quarter from 91% a year ago.

“Even with 11 successive profitable quarters, path-breaking initiatives, record aircraft orders and exploring new growth avenues through UDAN, I can say that we have just begun,” SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh said.

Singh acquired control of the airline in 2014 from Kalanithi Maran and his associate company Kal Airways as it was on the verge of shutting down after defaulting on dues. Spicejet now controls about 14% of the market with a 55-plane fleet. It will strengthen the balance sheet. While we do so, we also need to expand our 4G footprint. For example, Idea today covers only 47% of Indian population for 4G. We need to improve consumer experience, enhance our capacity as more and more customers upgrade from 2G to 4G. To do that, the needs Larger portion of the reason why the debt has gone up is because we had the spectrum auction last year same time and the cost of that shows in our net debt. As far as the company is concerned, all the repayments for FY18 and FY19 are concerned, they have been pre-paid. We don’t have any instalment to be paid and a large portion of The merged entity will continue to focus on profitability. It will be the number one telecom operator but it will not be a price disruptor or a price warrior. The focus of the merged entity will be to bring down overall costs through synergies.