BENGALURU (Reuters) -India’s IndiGo airline operator Interglobe Aviation reported a bigger-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter profit as it flew more passengers at higher ticket prices.
The country’s top airline by market share said profit more-than-doubled to 18.94 billion rupees ($227.6 million) from 9.16 billion rupees a year ago. It was expected to report a profit of 17.17 billion rupees, an average of four analysts’ estimates showed, per LSEG data.
The number of passengers carried domestically in the quarter increased nearly 13% from a year earlier, while the number of people flown in other domestic carriers fell more than 6%, data from India’s aviation regulator showed.
The low-cost carrier, also the world’s third-largest airline by market value, had India’s largest airline fleet of 367 aircraft as of the end of the quarter and commands a market share of 60.3%.
Revenue grew nearly 26%, helped by higher airfares, which also boosted its yield, or average revenue earned per passenger per kilometre, by 7%.
That outpaced a 6.5% rise in fuel costs, IndiGo’s largest expense, while posting a foreign exchange loss, compared to a gain last year.
Load factor, or the utilised passenger carrying capacity, improved to 86.3% from 84.2% a year earlier.
($1 = 83.2050 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Varun Hebbalalu and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
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