Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
IndiGo reports third straight quarterly loss at ₹1,583.3 crore
NEW DELHI: InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which runs India’s largest airline IndiGo, expects travel demand in India to be robust but is concerned about challenges such as supply-chain disruptions, high fuel prices and exchange rate volatility.
“One of the key after-effects of the pandemic in the aviation industry is the supply-chain disruptions in aircraft manufacturing, spare engines worldwide. This has impacted our operations due to grounding of aircraft and has impacted our ability to deploy capacity productively,” chief executive Pieter Elbers told analysts in his maiden post-earnings conference call at IndiGo.
The airline on Friday posted its third straight quarterly loss at ₹1,583.3 crore in the September quarter, a traditionally weak quarter for air travel. It reported a loss of ₹1,435.65 crore in the year-ago period. IndiGo reiterated that high fuel prices and adverse foreign exchange movement continue to be headwinds for its earnings ahead.
The disruption in the supply of aircraft, engines, and other spare parts has impacted airlines globally, and the Indian market is no exception.
More than 35 aircraft, or more than 12% of the airline’s fleet, have been grounded for at least seven days, an analysis by Mint of Flightradar24 data showed.
IndiGo has a 58% domestic market share.
The airline is analysing options to mitigate the shortfall in capacity deployment, such as slowing down redeliveries through lease extensions, exploring the reinduction of aircraft into the fleet and evaluating the wet lease options, Elbers said.
As of 30 September, the fleet size of IndiGo stood at 279 aircraft, compared with 281 aircraft as of 30 June and 279 as of September last year.
IndiGo expects to increase capacity by 13-17% in FY23 from pre-covid levels. As of December 2019, it had 257 aircraft.
Fuel expenses for the airline rose to ₹6,257.9 crore for the September quarter from ₹1,989.4 crore in the year-ago period, and it suffered a foreign exchange loss of ₹1,201.5 crore.