(Reuters) -India’s IndiGo airline operator Interglobe Aviation swung to its first quarterly loss in two years, weighed down by fuel expenses and growing aircraft rental costs.
The country’s biggest airline by market share said on Friday it made a loss of 9.89 billion rupees ($117.7 million) for the three months to Sept. 30, compared to a profit of 1.88 billion rupees a year ago.
IndiGo is India’s largest airline with a market share of 62.5%. It is also Asia’s biggest carrier by market valuation.
Issues with engines made by Pratt & Whitney grounded over 70 IndiGo aircraft in November last year is weighing on its bottom line, as the airline continues to extend leases on older jets while also leasing newer jets.
The airline operator said overall expenses jumped 22%, outpacing a 13.6% rise in revenue.
Fuel expenses rose about 13%, while supplementary aircraft rental and maintenance costs jumped nearly 30%. Costs from newer aircraft and engine rentals rose nearly four-fold.
Meanwhile, available seat kilometres – a measure of the airline’s passenger carrying capacity – grew 8.2%, meeting its own forecast of a high single digit growth.
The company, which has 410 aircrafts under its wings, expects third-quarter capacity to grow by low-double-digit percentage from a year earlier.
Indigo is also bracing for its departure from an all-economy cabin when it introduces its first-ever business class on select domestic routes next month.
($1 = 84.0560 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Meenakshi Maidas and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
