IndiGo reported a net profit of Rs 9.19 billion for the fourth quarter ending March 2023. This is the best-ever fourth-quarter profit reported by the airline, which enjoys a domestic market share of over 50 percent. The airline had reported a net loss of Rs 16,816 billion in the previous quarter.
In a statement, the airline said that excluding foreign exchange gains of Rs 2.52 billion, net profit for the quarter aggregated to Rs 6.66 billion compared to a loss excluding foreign exchange of Rs 10.695 billion previously.
For the year ended March 2023, IndiGo reported a profit of Rs 26.54 billion (excluding the foreign exchange impact) compared to a loss of Rs 52.21 billion (excluding the foreign exchange impact). Including foreign exchange impacts, IndiGo reported a net loss of Rs 3.05 billion for the year compared to a net loss of Rs 61.61 billion at the same time last year. The profits of the third and fourth quarters largely compensated for the losses incurred in this year’s first and second quarters.
The airline said that for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, capacity increased by 49.2 percent to 30.4 billion while the number of passengers carried increased by 60.5 percent to 23.4 million.
The airline saw a 77.9 percent increase in total income for the quarter that ended March 2023 at Rs 146 billion, while passenger ticket revenues were Rs 124.34 Â billion or an increase of 80.6 percent. Ancillary revenues grew 36.6 percent to Rs 14.45 billion compared to the previous year’s period.
Similarly, the airline reported an increase in yields by 10.2 percent to Rs 4.85, while revenue from operations increased by 76.5 percent to Rs 141.606 billion.
Like many other airlines globally, IndiGo faced an increase in fuel prices which, in the case of the Indian low-cost carrier, increased by 23.5 percent leading to an increase in fuel Cost Available Seat Kilometers by 16.8 percent to Rs 1.85.
Comparing the year ended March 31, 2023, to the previous year, IndiGo’s capacity increased by 62.5 percent to 114.4 billion while the number of passengers flown increased by 71.9 percent to 85.6 million, and yields improved by 20.9 percent to Rs 5.13.
The airline expects Available Seat Kilometers capacity to increase by 5 to 7 percent in the fiscal of 2024 as compared to the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2023.
IndiGo, like other Indian airlines, benefits from Go First’s insolvency and suspending operations. Go First had been allowed to operate almost 7 percent of the ~21,000 weekly departures the Indian aviation regulator allowed airlines to operate during the summer.
May and June are the peak travel season in India as school holidays begin and people take long breaks. Flights in the Indian skies crossed the pre-Covid daily passenger carriage on April 30 to over 400,000 a day.
