Low-cost carrier IndiGo on Monday reported a steep rise in profit after tax to ₹496 crore for the quarter ended December 2019, almost three times the profit after tax of ₹185.2 crore recorded in the year-earlier period.
The airline’s total income surged by a robust 25.5% ₹10,330.2 crore in the latest December quarter from the ₹8,229.3 crore in the corresponding period a year ago.
Of this, passenger ticket revenue stood at ₹8,770.30 crore, an increase of 24.1% y-o-y, while the ancillary revenue during the quarter stood at ₹1,037.30 crore, registering a growth of 28.8% over the year-ago period, the airline said.
The yield or average ticket price increased 2.1% in the December quarter to ₹3.88 per km, from the ₹3.83 per km in the third quarter of 2018-19. At the same time, the fuel cost reduced 2% to ₹334.19 crore as compared to ₹341.04 crore, as per the filing.
The airline said the year-on-year capacity increase in available seat kilometers (ASK), which is a measure of passenger carrying capacity, is expected to be 20% for the March quarter and 23% for 2019-20. For the financial year 2021, capacity increase in ASKs is expected to be around 20%.
“I am very enthusiastic about the way we have been developing our network, connecting cities, large and small, to provide more choice to our customers. We have added small cities, such as Shirdi and Shillong, to our network while extending our reach to major cities such as Hanoi and Guangzhou,” IndiGo chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta said.
IndiGo added 12 aircraft during the quarter under review. Its fleet comprised 257 aircraft with 126 A320 Ceos, 96 A320Neos, 10 A321Neosand 25 ATRs at the end of December 31, 2019.
