Airlines on budget drive as rising fuel price, falling rupee start to pinch

It is going to get hard to differentiate between a full-service carrier and a budget airline as the aviation industry goes on an economy drive. Threatened by rising fuel price and a falling rupee, airline companies are planning drastic measures ranging from freezing increments to cutting down on flights and in-flight luxuries to save and earn that extra penny.

State-owned Air India, reeling from a Rs 500-billion debt after a failed privatisation attempt, is at the forefront of cutting out the frills. Overtime pay, staff conveyance, travel expenses, and building ...Read Full Story

Airline stocks fall on weak InterGlobe Aviation results; IndiGo tanks 18%

Shares of airline companies - InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo), Jet Airways and SpiceJet – have tanked up to 18% after the IndiGo reported weak set of numbers for the quarter ended March 2018 (Q4FY18)

IndiGo plunged 18% to Rs 1,111 on the BSE after the company reported a sharp 73% decline in net profit to Rs 1.17 billion for the March quarter (Q4FY18), due to higher fuel costs and adverse forex exchange positions. The country’s largest airline had profit of Rs 4.4 billion in year ago quarter.
With today’s fall, the market value of IndiGo has declined 26% in past four trading sessions after the resignation of its president Aditya Ghosh.

SpiceJet (down 9% at Rs 120) and Jet Airways (down 6% at Rs 556) were down more than 5% on the BSE in intra-day trade today. On comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading 0.16% lower at 35,122 points at 09:55 am.

IndiGo’s revenue from operations during the quarter under review grew 19.6% at Rs 57.99 billion against Rs 48.48 billion during the same period last year.