India’s top airline beats profit estimate on higher capacity
IndiGo announced plans to launch a premium product within months to woo India’s first-time business travelers after announcing a quarterly profit that beat analysts’ forecast. The country’s biggest airline will introduce a “tailor-made” product for India’s “busiest and business routes” by the end of the year, it said in a filing Thursday. The product is aimed at those who want to “travel business, perhaps for the first time in their lives,” Indigo said, adding that it will release details about the premium offering and routes in August. The announcement underscores the low-cost carrier’s ambitions to pivot beyond its no-frill offerings and tap high-paying fliers among the country’s growing aspirational class. It’s also gearing to become a long-haul carrier, moving beyond its specialization in short-haul trips that has underpinned its growth. Those ambitions got a boost by a larger-than-expected quarterly profit. Net income almost doubled to 18.9b rupees ($227m) in the three months ended March 31 from a year earlier, topping an average analysts estimate of 11.99b rupees. This is the sixth straight quarterly profit posted by the airline, boosted by a 14.4% rise in seat capacity. Revenue surged 26% from a year earlier to 178.3b rupees, also beating estimates. Total costs rose 22% to 167.4b rupees during the period, while fuel costs advanced 6.6%. Load factor — which measures the utilization of available seat capacity — was at 86.3% versus 84.2% in the same period last year. IndiGo is expecting a “similar revenue environment” in Q1 as the previous year, CFO Gaurav Negi said in a post-earnings call. The airline will likely struggle to grow earnings in the fiscal year 2025 after it clocked a record profit of 81.7b rupees in the twelve months through March, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analysts Tim Bacchus and Eric Zhu said in a note. It will be difficult for IndiGo to break that record this year as “costs mount and competition from merged Air India strengthens.”<br/>
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India’s top airline beats profit estimate on higher capacity
IndiGo announced plans to launch a premium product within months to woo India’s first-time business travelers after announcing a quarterly profit that beat analysts’ forecast. The country’s biggest airline will introduce a “tailor-made” product for India’s “busiest and business routes” by the end of the year, it said in a filing Thursday. The product is aimed at those who want to “travel business, perhaps for the first time in their lives,” Indigo said, adding that it will release details about the premium offering and routes in August. The announcement underscores the low-cost carrier’s ambitions to pivot beyond its no-frill offerings and tap high-paying fliers among the country’s growing aspirational class. It’s also gearing to become a long-haul carrier, moving beyond its specialization in short-haul trips that has underpinned its growth. Those ambitions got a boost by a larger-than-expected quarterly profit. Net income almost doubled to 18.9b rupees ($227m) in the three months ended March 31 from a year earlier, topping an average analysts estimate of 11.99b rupees. This is the sixth straight quarterly profit posted by the airline, boosted by a 14.4% rise in seat capacity. Revenue surged 26% from a year earlier to 178.3b rupees, also beating estimates. Total costs rose 22% to 167.4b rupees during the period, while fuel costs advanced 6.6%. Load factor — which measures the utilization of available seat capacity — was at 86.3% versus 84.2% in the same period last year. IndiGo is expecting a “similar revenue environment” in Q1 as the previous year, CFO Gaurav Negi said in a post-earnings call. The airline will likely struggle to grow earnings in the fiscal year 2025 after it clocked a record profit of 81.7b rupees in the twelve months through March, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analysts Tim Bacchus and Eric Zhu said in a note. It will be difficult for IndiGo to break that record this year as “costs mount and competition from merged Air India strengthens.”<br/>
