IndiGo plans to raise 30b rupees ($409m) by selling shares as a worsening spike in Covid-19 infections in India puts any domestic or international air travel recovery on hold. IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation, approved a proposal to raise funds selling shares to large investors, the airline said in an exchange filing Monday. The move comes a few months after it said it didn’t need money. In January, IndiGo shelved plans to raise as much as 40b rupees with then CFO Aditya Pande saying the company’s internal sources of cash would be sufficient on the back of a recovery in demand. That was before a vicious second wave of virus cases erupted in Ind, killing thousands of people. Pande resigned in February and has been replaced by Jiten Chopra. India’s rapidly rising Covid-19 caseload has disappointed the country’s air travel industry, which had just begun to show signs of recovery, particularly in domestic routes. Airlines in the South Asian nation lost $2 billion in nine months last year. The second wave has delayed a recovery by around six months for international travel and three for domestic, according to India Ratings & Research.<br/>
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Kuwaiti budget carrier Jazeera Airways has turned in a first-quarter loss while Sharjah low-cost operator Air Arabia managed to achieve a net profit in the same period. Jazeera Airways is proposing a rights issue of KD10m ($33m) to improve its liquidity position, after posting a net loss of KD5.2m for the first three months of the year. Although its revenues sank by 57% to KD8.1m, it only cut costs by 39% to KD12.2m. Kuwaiti authorities had allowed a gradual resumption of flight operations from August 2020 but disruption re-emerged in late February 2021, says the carrier. Jazeera points out, however, that it has “sufficient resources” to continue operating and its going-concern position is unchanged from the end of 2020. It adds that the proposed rights issue will “strengthen” its liquidity. It adds that it expects a phased relaxation of restrictions on airport operations beginning in June, and increased demand for air travel in summer. United Arab Emirates budget operator Air Arabia, in contrast, generated a net profit of Dhs34m ($9.3m) for the first quarter despite the pandemic’s continuing impact. This figure was nevertheless half the Dhs71m achieved in the same period last year.<br/>
Philippine low-cost carrier Cebu Pacific Air saw its Q1 operating loss balloon to Ps6.8b ($124m) from Ps692m a year earlier. Revenue for the three months ended 31 March fell 83% Ps2.7b, according to the airline’s unaudited financial statement for the period. The airline attributed the sharp reversal to the coronavirus pandemic. “The overall decline in revenues was brought about by the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak which started with cancellation of flights to China, Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea in varying periods in early 2020 due to the imposition of travel restrictions,” says the carrier. This rapid spread of Covid-19, first discovered in China, saw the Philippine government impose a “community quarantine” that forced the airline to cancel all flights from 19 March 2020. Services were “virtually nil” until April 2020, when the airline started to operate domestic and international cargo services. In specific business segments, passenger revenue fell to just Ps887m from Ps11.4b a year earlier, while cargo revenue grew 32% to Ps1.3b.<br/>