InterGlobe Aviation Limited (INDIGO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to IndiGo's conference call to discuss the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 financial results. My name is Nirav, and I'll be your coordinator. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your moderator, Ms. Richa Chhabra, from the Investor Relations team of IndiGo. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 earnings call. We have with us our Chief Executive Officer, Pieter Elbers; and our Chief Financial Officer, Gaurav Negi, to discuss the financial performance and are available for the Q&A Session. Please note that today's discussion may contain certain statements on our business or financials, which may be construed as forward-looking. Our actual results may be materially different from these forward-looking statements. The information provided on this call is as of today's date and we undertake no obligation to update the information subsequently. We will upload the transcript of prepared remarks by the end. The transcript of the Q&A session will be uploaded subsequently. With this, let me hand over the call to Pieter Elbers.

Thank you so much, Richa. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And since this is the first time that we interact in 2025, kindly allow me to wish you all of you a happy New Year and thank you for joining the call. Earlier this afternoon, we have announced our financial results for the third quarter of the financial year 2025, and it's a pleasure to share that we have delivered an exceptional third quarter results, and there were several driving forces that has led to this remarkable performance. We witnessed a substantial growth demand for air travel. We continued our strategic expansion across markets. And thirdly, we have enhanced our operational performance. Fueled by festive period, year-end holidays and a general rise in consumer spending across industries, we have witnessed significant surge in demand. This has led to the industry load factors in the domestic markets to remain above 90% for the most part of November and December. We have welcomed around 31 million passengers in the December quarter, achieving the highest number of passengers served during any quarter in the history of IndiGo. This reflects a growth of around 13% on a year-over-year basis. Further, in the year, the calendar year 2024, around 113 million passengers chose to fly with us, which is around a 10% growth as compared to the year before. Our ability to meet this growing demand with improved operational efficiency positions us as the airline of choice. The surge in demand for air travel has led to a strong revenue performance as we reported a total income of INR 230 billion for the third quarter of the financial year '25, which is an increase of around 15% as compared to the same period last year against a capacity increase of 12%. In terms of profitability, excluding the impact of currency movement, we reported a profit after tax of around INR 38.5 billion or INR 3,850 crores. Including the impact of currency movement, we've reported a profit after tax of INR 24.5 billion or INR 2,450 crore. And Gaurav will talk through the currency movement and our hedging strategy. As we continued our robust growth path, we achieved yet another milestone by operating a peak of 2,200 daily flights during the quarter. And today, we are placed among the top airlines across the world when it comes to scalable, reliable and efficiency of operations. Operating at such large skills required careful planning, teamwork and a flawless execution by all IndiGo employees. From ground operations to flight crews, from maintenance teams to customer service, our employees exemplify excellence at every level. If you recall, our operational performance was impacted from the start of the winter season last year, we have learned valuable lessons and took several steps to improve our performance. Through targeted initiatives such as improved schedules and enhanced operational procedures, supported by, of course, lower disruption days, we have reaffirmed our leadership position in terms of on-time performance. Our industry is dynamic and the needs of our customers are evolving, and we are committed to staying ahead of the curve. As we move forward, we have a clear strategy in place, which is based on striking a balance on the 2 key focus areas. Firstly, honoring our customer promises, affordable fares, purchase and hassle free service, on-time performance and an unparalleled network. And second, catering the ever-evolving needs of our customers. In that direction, we have launched IndiGo's business class, IndiGoStretch on the Delhi-Mumbai route mid-November. And to build on that momentum, we have launched Stretch on the second route Delhi-Bangalore more recently, and we are gearing up to launch Delhi-Chennai very soon. In the year 2025, we will launch Stretch on 10 metro-to-metro routes across the country with a total of some 45 aircraft. The initial feedback on this new product is very promising, highlighting IndiGo's alignment with evolving travel needs in India and the revenue potential of these business class seats. We also continue to further densify our unparalleled network. In the last few months, we have announced 2 more domestic destinations, Puducherry and Bikaner. With these announcements, we have a network of 90 domestic networks -- domestic destinations, apologies. On the international side, we have announced 4 new destinations: Mauritius, Langkawi, Penang and Madinah. And with the addition of these new destinations, we now have 38 international destinations. And we are aiming to end this year with at least 40 international destinations. However, network expansion is not just about adding more destinations, it's also about adding more routes and frequencies. And during the third quarter, we've added 50 new routes and provided our customer with more options to travel in the shortest time possible and with minimal hassle. As the Indian economy maintains its position as the fastest-growing major economy in the world, it is projected to become world's third largest in the coming years. Indian businesses are expanding internationally, our citizens are exploring more destinations than ever before, and our diaspora continues to grow. Given these factors, air travel demand is poised to continue to grow, and we're privileged to be able to contribute to this growth. However, there are still certain key markets, which are underserved and this represents a fast reservoir of untapped potential. As the most preferred airline of the country, we're uniquely positioned to bridge these gaps and unlock the full potential of our country's global activity. And for this purpose, subject to regulatory approvals, we are exploring interim solutions for an earlier introduction of long-range aircraft to our fleet through wet leases. Route and network opportunities are being explored at present, and we will communicate as and when it's finalized. And if you look back in the last 2 years, amidst all the supply chain disrupted environment, we have developed a capability of leveraging secondary market capacity to cater to the robust demand. And in the market, we're hopeful that soon, we will be able to cater to the demand in the long-haul markets, too. Recently, IndiGo was recognized as Airline of the Year by CAPA for our role in growing and transforming commercial aviation in India. To receive this award amid some of the world's biggest and brightest airline is very encouraging and a source of pride. We feel privileged by the fact that all the hard work of the Indigo employees in running a world-class airline is being recognized. In addition, with our investments towards modern, fuel-efficient fleet and other initiatives, we are focusing on sustainability to ensure that our growth is not only profitable but also responsible. Our efforts and investments in this direction have been recognized as our Dow Jones Sustainability Index Score has improved by around 80% in the last 2 years. We've recently also launched a 0 waste project, airport project at indoor, which aims to minimize the environmental impact of airport operations and set a new standard for sustainable waste management in Indian aviation. All these initiatives are building blocks of our clear and well-defined strategy and reflect our commitment to continue to grow this momentum. As we mentioned during the last earnings call, we have turned the corner on the grounding situations when it comes to AOGs and now it's on a downward trajectory. During this quarter, we were able to adapt our capacity to meet the growing demand. These results during the quarter highlight our agility and adaptability in tuning our capacity to the demand environment. Looking forward, we see tremendous opportunities on the horizon and with the robust long-term demand fundamentals of the Indian aviation industry, we are confident in our ability to serve the growing demand while navigating external challenges effectively. With this, ladies and gentlemen, let me now over -- hand over the call to Gaurav to discuss the financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Pieter, and good evening, everyone. For the quarter ended December 2024, we reported a net profit of INR 24.5 billion with a profit margin of 11%, compared to a net profit of INR 50 billion for the quarter ended December 2023. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange movement, we reported a profit of around INR 38.5 billion with a margin of 17.4% compared to INR 30.5 billion with a margin of 15.7% last year. This reflects a growth of around 26% on a year-over-year basis. We reported an EBITDA of INR 61 billion compared to an EBITDA of INR 55 billion during the same period last year. Our strong financial performance was primarily driven by strong demand in domestic market, our continued investment in capacity to cater to this demand and a benign fuel prices. In terms of the revenue performance, we have performed better than our guidance as the demand came in stronger than anticipated in the months of November and December. During the quarter, Indian aviation industry reached new heights and achieved the historic milestone of serving more than 5 lakh domestic passengers in a day. We also had a privilege of serving more than 3 lakh daily domestic passengers. This is a strong rebound that we have seen after a moderate growth in the first half of the year. It was driven by various factors, including elections, heatwave and general slowdown across industries. The passenger unit revenue came in at INR 4.72, which is a flattish on a year-over-year basis. The yields came in at INR 5.43, which is about 1% lower as compared to the same period last year. And the load factors of around 87%, which is 1 point higher as compared to the same period last year. Our overall ancillary revenue also continues to grow as we expand our cargo operations, leverage technology integration and tailored our other ancillary offerings. Our overall unit revenues, which is RASK, came in at INR 5.44, which is around 2% higher compared to the quarter ended December 2023. As Pieter mentioned, while our top line performance exceeded our expectations, the profitability was adversely impacted by rupee depreciation during the quarter. The third quarter saw continued weakness in rupee, primarily due to the strengthening of the U.S. economy, and at the end of the quarter, it depreciated around 2% as compared to the September quarter ending, resulting in a mark-to-market foreign exchange loss of around INR 14 billion. Our exposure to foreign exchange risk is largely due to significant portion of our lease liability and maintenance obligations that are denominated in U.S. dollars. If we look at the net exposure, ForEx-denominated liabilities less the assets, which is primarily our dollar deposits, for every rupee movement leads to a mark-to-market loss of around INR 7.9 billion at the end of December. This impact is recorded in the foreign exchange line item. These [indiscernible] over a long-term period but as per the accounting norms, we accrue the currency impact at the quarter end. While the currency remains volatile and has further appreciated in January, we have been actively taking steps to reduce this volatility in the financial statement by hedging part of our foreign currency outlook. In the current quarter, we have recorded a gain of INR 591 million on our hedging contracts. Going forward, we will further enhance our hedging positions as we add more international capacity we expect the natural hedges to also improve. On the cost side, as the global fuel prices went down by more than 20%, on a year-over-year basis, our fuel CASK also reduced by 16%. ForEx depreciation, VAT increases, higher number of COs in the operation and congestion at [indiscernible] continued to put pressure on the fuel cost. While sequentially, the CASK ex-ForEx remained stable at INR 2.9, on a year-over-year basis, it has increased around 10 percentage points compared to the same period last year, primarily driven by grounding related costs and contractual escalations across line items and annual increments. Also sequentially, while on a per unit basis, the aircraft and engine rentals has risen. Absolute cost has remained stable due to increase in the number of damp lease aircrafts, as offset by lower winter rates on certain leases. Moving to the AOG situation. As we mentioned in the last earnings call, we are past the peak of bonding and the grounding are on a downward trajectory, in the 60s currently. Based on the latest guidance from the OEMs, we will begin the next financial year with the grounding in the range of 40s and expect the number to further go down as the year progresses. In terms of the fleet, during the quarter, we inducted 33 aircraft of which 23 are from the original order book. This included 15 aircraft, which have been inducted through our entity in the Gift City. We also inducted 8 aircrafts in the form of bank leases and 2 aircraft in the form of secondary leases to cater to the robust demand in the market. We also delivered 6 aircrafts during the quarter, resulting in a total fleet of 437 aircrafts. On the balance sheet side, we ended the December quarter with a capitalized operating lease liability of INR 496 billion and a total debt, including the capitalized operating lease liability of around INR 651 billion. Our right-to-use asset at quarter end were around INR 468 billion. With the strong financial performance during the quarter, our liquidity has further improved as we ended the December quarter with a free cash of INR 289 billion and a restricted cash of INR 149 billion. We have also purchased 3 ATR aircrafts and acquired 10 aircraft on finance lease as part of our cash utilization initiatives. Going forward, we will continue to invest in aircrafts, infrastructure and technology. Now if you recall, last year in January, we had faced sudden groundings that had led to a lower capacity. Therefore, for the fourth quarter of the financial year, we are expecting to add capacity of around 20% as compared to the same period last year, and we remain firm on our full year guidance of double-digit capacity additions. Further, on the revenue side, based on the trends that we've seen in January, we are estimating an early single-digit moderation in the unit passenger revenue as compared to the high base of last year where the industry had faced a second supply chain constraint. The performance during the quarter reflects the strength of our clear and well-defined strategy, trust of our customers and resilience of our operations. As we move forward, we remain focused on our competitive strength of being 1 of the lowest-cost airlines in the world, and we are confident in our ability to drive long-term value by balancing growth and with financial discipline. With this, let me hand it back to Richa.

Thank you, Pieter and Gaurav. [Operator Instructions] And with that, we are ready for the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of from Pramod Kumar from UBS.

Congratulations to the team IndiGo for a very solid operational...

Can you speak to the handset, please.

Sure, sure. I'm doing that. Yes. Is it better now?

Yes.

And congratulations to the team Indigo on a very solid operational performance. I just -- before I ask the question, just a clarification on the yield a bit what Gaurav was talking about, the line was a bit distorted. Did I hear that quarter-on-quarter, the yields will moderate by mid-single digit or thereabout?

Early single digits.

Early single digit. Okay. That's good figure. And Gaurav, to both of you, on the ASK side, if I work with the numbers what you said for 4Q and even extrapolate those for the next year and then taking the AOG situation getting better than the planned capacity of fleet edition, are we kind of looking at ASK growth kind of stepping up meaningfully higher than FY '25 levels? Is that understanding right? And thereby, kind of the operating situation, if you can just comment a bit on that, please?

I think we have been very consistent for the last 2, 3 years in delivering up to our capacity guidance. What Gaurav was alluding to, and you see that in the results. So far, we are living up to our capacity guidance for this year, this quarter, which we published today at an ASK growth of 12%, which is very much in the early double-digit numbers as we announced. The fourth quarter, as Gaurav alluded to, will have a very significant increase, mostly because last year had a significant decline. And with that increase of the 20%, which we have published or just shared with you for Q4, we confirm basically our guidance for FY '25. For FY '26, that's part of the discussion we have actually right now. Again, we are very, very [indiscernible] we have seen in the recovery of the demand and Gaurav shared that with you, the first half of the year was somewhat muted for probably a whole host of external reasons. If you see this last quarter, it has been very solid. And we've seen that in load factors. I mean, to have 2 consecutive months with a load factor higher than 90% is very telling. We touched a record of 10 million customers in a single month in the month of November, and I think we were 20,000 short of touching 11 million customers in the month of December. So that brought us to 31 million customers in this very last quarter. So clearly, we're very much encouraged by these numbers, and we're right now in the process of setting up our plans for next year.

And Pieter, just a follow-up on the domestic bit because it's happening in a context where there is concerns about the moderation in the economy, some of the other discretionary categories have started seeing deceleration and commentary is not that great. And also, there is talk of urban slowdowns. So just if you can help us understand some of the final aspects of the nuances of the domestic growth, which are the pockets where you're seeing better demand, metro-on-metro, any color, which you can share? And related to that, just some comments on the international operation because we clearly think domestic has been very, very robust.

Yes. Well, I'm not an economist, leave alone a specialist on the Indian consumer trends. So let me put those 2 disclaimers upfront. But what we see and, I see even in some other industries, actually, quite a positive rebound in towards the latter half of the year. So what we do see is that the under penetration of air travel in India provides just an incredible reservoir of opportunities to be tapped. So there may be some variation in yields quarter-over-quarter. There may be some variations of pricing quarter-over-quarter. But the fact that the percentage of Indians using air travel compared to the rest of the world is still relatively low, gives us a lot of confidence on these growth numbers. And in the Q2, thanks to the heatwave, thanks to the election. So we had seen some sort of external effects, which we haven't seen in this quarter. So we are sort of back to the growth levels and year-over-year. The month of December was 8%. I think November was 12%. So we see actually a very strong quarter. To your further detailing, we have seen it all across the board. And the strength of IndiGo really is we have a network very strong in the metros and clearly, very strong metro-to-metro position. But we have also very much a broad-based network with some 450 routes domestic and soon 90 destinations domestic. We serve first-time flyers, quite a lot of them. But we also serve the corporate markets. So all these segments, actually, we've seen a very healthy demand on that side. On the international side, we've done a lot of the expansions. They're basically welcome very much and very good by our customers. We have now touched 28% of all our ASKs are now on the international side. You remember, we had that discussed a couple of times that, that's going to be sort of leading part of our growth. And also, that is there. So the Indian traveler wants to explore. I think IndiGo provides a fantastic opportunity to have those new flights and new routes. And I think some of the new ones, which we have introduced, Langkawi, Penang, have been welcomed very positive in the market itself.

Next question is from the line of Amyn Pirani from JPMorgan.

I just had some clarifications on the ForEx loss. So a, can you quantify how much of the ForEx loss amount in the PL is due to unrealized MTM? And the related question is that the realized ForEx hit that you would have taken for expenses incurred in the quarter, are they also in this line item? Or are they distributed on the various revenue and cost line items?

Amyn, the large part of the mark-to-market is unrealized. I would say 99% of that is going to be unrealized. The realized portion is a very small portion, somewhere in probably double digits only. compared to the large part of the unrealized, which is close to INR 1,400 crores that we've called out in this quarter.

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And secondly, if I remember in the fiscal '24 annual report, the 1% movement in USD-INR was something like INR 500 crores. That number has increased to something like INR 700 crores, if I got it right, in the initial remarks.

You're right because if you look at the balance sheet, the balance sheet is also growing with both the lease assets that we have as well as the maintenance obligations. So as we continue to grow our business, the fleet size has increased. Commensurate to that, the liability side also increases. So the 500 that you're referencing is now closer to $8 billion of obligations that we carry. So that number also correspondingly has increased for every moment...

And just lastly, your international revenues, is it fair to assume that most of them are in foreign currency and as it increases, that should create a natural hedge?

Yes, that's the goal, and that's what I kind of called out in my earlier part of the script that I shared with everyone. So 10% of our revenue comes from international. Again, there could be some elements, which are point of sales happen in India. But the intent is to keep growing international. And as a point of sale also increases in the international arena, that's going to play an element of a natural hedge for all our obligations, which we have to pay in dollar terms also.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies India.

I have one question on yields or expansion into international groups, which seems to be like taking priority versus domestic growth in terms of ASK allocation. So is this coming at a lower yield versus to the average and has a depressing impact on overall yield performance? This is my first question. And my other question is on our ancillary revenue, 22% growth. Is the hotel segment side contribute meaningfully to that performance for the company?

Well, let me start with your first question on the international side. Yields go up and down. In general, the longer the fly -- you fly, the lower the yield per ASK. So that's sort of generic but also the lower the cost per ASK is. So it's not per se the yield, I think we should look at the margin. But I think more strategically, Indian airlines, Indian carriers have a lower share than foreign airlines, one. Two, the penetration of air travel for international travel is even lower than for domestic travel. So we just believe that these 2 factors would drive for a surge of growth in international travel. And we have identified that strategy 2, 3 years back. And basically, we're just now executing that strategy going forward. So we look at the spread between domestic and international. Again, these go up and down. I think it's also a good way and we see that in other parts of the world to have a healthy mix between domestic and international. It was just mentioned earlier, it serves to some extent as some natural hedging in terms of ForEx. So that is helping. As for now, we continue that part. I would like to probably -- I would not like to call it, correct you, but supplement probably on what you just said. You said international ASKs has taken priority over domestic. That's not really the case. The basis for domestic is so large that the absolute addition of ASKs on domestic is still larger than what we do on international. So what we do see is a gradual sort of rebalancing. Today, it's 28%. A few years back, it used to be 20%. So we see a gradual rebalancing with an absolute number of ASKs and growth. It is still more on the domestic side than on international. So our strategy really here is to solidify our foundation in the Indian market. And again, we have been an example in other parts of the world where airlines were lacking a strong domestic basis and just having a lot of international operations and that didn't turn out to be the most effective way. So I think what IndiGo is doing, we're solidifying our domestic position, and we're building on that international. And the results, and that's partly the ForEx for a minute. If we look at the results, the profits, excluding ForEx, which had a jump, as Gaurav mentioned earlier, 26% from INR 3,000 crores last year to INR 3,850 crores this year, I think that just underpins the growth of our strategy. The ForEx is beyond our control, and we take, of course, all this, what you call M2M going forward. But if we just look at the operational performance of the company beside the on-time performance but just running the business side Basically, the strategy is really paying off and we see that jump from INR 3,000 crores last year to INR 3,850 crores this year.

And the other question was on ancillary revenues and contribution from a new digital initiative include hotel segment.

Sorry, I was carried away by the international part. That is still at the very early stages, I would say. We've launched it. It is -- we start to explore it maybe probably good to highlight at this point in time, the introduction of our loyalty program, basically, which started also to run in this quarter. It was announced in August. It started to register in October, we actually see a very, very positive response. So these are all parts of, I would say, the same pieces of -- the pieces of the very same puzzle. And so we have the infrastructure for the hotels in place yet. Numbers today are still at the start-up phase. But we are confident that at the moment, it will all start to get together hotels, our loyalty program, our stretch products, further internationalization all these things will start to help each other. But we will take a bit of time on the hotel side to see increase in the numbers.

The next question is from the line of Binay Singh from Morgan Stanley.

Congratulations also for a good set of numbers. Just a few follow-up questions. First is the ForEx gain that we talked about, where exactly is it sitting in the P&L, the INR 591 million or so?

That's in the other income category.

Okay. And secondly, what percentage -- like we said 10% of revenues are from international, what percentage will be dollar-denominated?

Last part is what you're saying is going to be or any foreign currency denoted.

Okay. And what exactly is our hedging strategy now? So just -- so that when we look into the future, what should we assume for ForEx losses versus gains? So if you could talk a little bit about hedging strategy.

What we rolled out as a policy, Binay, is we're looking at least of what our cash outflows are going to be in the next 12 months. So our hedging strategy currently looks out for the next 12 months, while our obligations, given what we have on our balance sheet, goes for a much extended year. We started to kind of hedge positions, which are kind of there for the next 12 months. Towards that, obviously, we have a certain amount of inflows, like I said, a natural hedge that comes through. So whatever is the natural hedge is taken out, which is the 10% that I've talked about in terms of revenues that are coming from international. We have some inflows that come from incentives that we receive on deliveries. Outside of that, we've got a policy that we've got to hedge up 20% of the remainder. So in aggregate, we are hedging for the next 12 months up to 60% to 70% of our positions. Going forward, we'll also keep testing whether we want to extend this out from a 12-year window -- 12-month window, can we extend this out to a longer window given our obligations go longer. But for now, at least, we are hedging all our positions for the next 12 months between a natural hedge and the forward instruments that we're taking up to 60% to 70%.

Okay. That's good to know. So the number that you gave about INR 1 move having the loss on the P&L, that is after this hedging number or that is our -- so that is post the hedging number?

So this number is on the balance sheet and then because that goes all the way for the extended period of leases and the maintenance obligations, they could be up to 8 to 10 years. So that's on the balance sheet numbers. So I'm giving a 6 point so that when you look at the balance sheet to get engaged, that how much is the net exposure on the balance sheet in terms of my liabilities that I carry. On that, any movement for a rupee is going to be translating into a number that comes like the earlier question was earlier, our exposure was up to $5 billion because we had 300 aircrafts on balance sheet. Today, we got more than 400. That number has gone up to $8 billion. So you've got a gauge on that. But the hedge is going to be a subset of that, like I'm saying anything which is a 12-month payout that I have or a cash outflow I have, I'm going to hedge that position.

So in a depreciating rupee environment, every quarter, we will probably have a little bit of a ForEx gain that you will report in your other income?

Subject to which direction the ForEx is going to move in that particular window.

Yes. And also versus the rate at which you would have hedged, like the 12-month exposure. Any guidance you're sharing on that, at what rate would you have hedged that?

No, we're not giving any guidances right now. It's a rollover mechanism. You've got many rates that keep playing out because you keep doing it on a monthly basis. It's a rollover mechanism we have. So it will be very difficult for us to give you any guidance.

That's very helpful. And just one last question. We've talked about the AOG situation, how it is hitting us on the CASK side, and there's also some compensation on the top line side. Any number you would like to share at the spread level? And once this AOG situation passes by, any benefit at the overall spread level that you will see?

It's going to be better. So we're not giving any kind of a number out related to that. All I can say is going to improve the situation will probably be -- if I were to take -- or give you some kind of a gauge, it's going to be in the single digits in terms of spreads. So that's where I'll leave with that.

RASK minus CASK spreads, right?

Yes.

Well, the impact of it. Yes. You asked for the impact. Again, I think what is important, we discussed last time. Last time, we said we've turned the corner for the AOGs and we've started to decline. Then what is the pace of decline and at what point, time will tell. But it's important that we've started to improve the situation and our mitigating measures have been extremely effective. We've delivered the growth in this quarter despite the AOG situation. But slowly, slowly, we will see that effect go down. And hence, we'll see it coming back in the bottom line. And of course, yes, that's going to be better. What precise number is open for debate. But surely, it will have a better impact or a positive impact on the spread there.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Pulkit from Goldman Sachs.

First is a clarification. The yield guidance that you've given, is it Q-o-Q or is it Y-o-Y?

Y-o-Y, Pulkit.

Okay. Y-o-Y. Right. So similar guidance to what it was in the last quarter, low single-digit moderation in yields Y-o-Y, right?

That's right, Pulkit. Last quarter was a little bit on the -- towards the midpoint also, low to mid. This one is towards the low end of the single digits.

Okay. So this is clear. My second question is on the cost of damp leases. I remember last quarter, you had highlighted that the Qatar Airways plane, et cetera, has come towards the end. So only partial costs have been booked but your lease cost is actually not that high. So any other adjustments we have done, have you been able to send some of those planes, high-cost wet lease plays back. Just a flavor on our cost control in general has been better in the quarter. So I wanted to get a flavor on what really drove that.

I think I have shared the last time also, we were experiencing a higher rate on those damp leases because of the summer rates. Those leases had come from Europe. They had a summer rate that was higher. Those rates moderate down during the winter and that's the moderation that happened in this quarter. But having said that, that reduction got offset with more damp leases that we've taken. So on an absolute basis, what you will see is that the cost has remained neutral despite an increased damp leases but a moderation in the rates, which kind of set each other off. So there's no increase in absolute terms but the number of damp leases have gone up and the rates have reduced for summer rates that were being applied on certain leases that we had taken from Europe now have shifted to a winter rate.

Which has a positive effect on results because, in fact, we have more ASKs for the same lease cost.

Exactly.

Okay. Great, sir. Yes, this is something I learned earlier with the call. And my last question is other nonoperating income, given that a large part of this was contributed by as AOG has come down, we were expecting this number also to be lower, but it looks like sequentially that number has jumped up. Anything other than that which is driving it?

Should be largely the same, Pulkit. There's not too much variation except for the number of days that would be there. So on an average basis, it will largely be the same. So no major variation.

Okay. But from the next fiscal start, where OD has come down, this number should largely come down in the same sequence, right?

Yes, yes, absolutely. So the claims are directly proportional to the number of AOGs.

The next question is from the line of Joseph George from IIFL Securities.

Just one question. I am trying to get my hands around MTM loss. So out of the total cash value that you have of about INR 14,000 crores approximately, how much is the dollar denominated?

Roughly around INR 14,000 crores.

Okay. So when I look at the total liabilities, I mean, total debt, including the lease liabilities, that about INR 65,000 crores. And if I were to deduct, say, INR 14,000 crores of dollar-denominated cash, works out to slightly more than INR 50,000 crores. So I'm trying to figure out how does a 1% -- sorry, a 2% change in the currency from 2Q and to 3Q end result in a INR 1,400 crore of FX entity?

So you've got -- what you've seen is lease liability. There is maintenance obligations also, which you need to add to that because the combination of the lease liability that you have on the rental side, and the maintenance obligation in aggregate. If you were to consider those, net of this restricted cash that I'm talking about is going to give you a net exposure of somewhere around $8 billion. So every dollar movement that will happen will translate into INR 800 crores for you. And given it's a 2 points of shift that has happened, an average of that is coming to INR 1,400 crores of end to end. So what I am missing out in your calculation is the maintenance obligations also.

The next question is from the line of Sabri H. from Emkay Global.

So first to clarify, you mentioned your current AOG that is Q3 and AOG is around -- in the 60s, you said. So is it like mid-60s or low 60s?

We're not getting specifics on the numbers, it's in the 60s, we leave it that right now, Sabri.

Okay, fair enough. And secondly, in terms of your -- I mean what we've seen is that there was significant fleet addition, which has happened. Most like 70 aircrafts have been added in the last 9 months. So -- and you've also upped the guidance of ASK significantly for Q4. So like you said, I mean, until like -- I think I mean December was like somewhat not that strong, around 8% passenger growth. But are you expecting -- I mean, like you have mentioned also that the demand is back. So are you expecting a double-digit sustainable growth of the Indian market for the upcoming period?

Yes. Maybe to clarify a few points. The number I was referring to was the total market for the month of December, which was just published yesterday. So the total market for December has gone up 8%. IndiGo had gone up with almost 13% in the month of December. So we've recorded a very strong month and actually a very strong quarter with that INR 31 million. So that is just reconfirming the fact that after the first half of the year, we see really a strong growth of the demand in the second half of the year. We expect that to continue in the quarter to come. We will have a 20% capacity growth in that quarter year-over-year. That's not because we're adding that number of planes but that's mostly becoming we had a significant drop last year because last year, you may recall, we had the powder metal issue and groundings were increasing. And so there was a lot of issues last year. So basically, with the growth now, we are -- we have totally recovered from whatever happened in that time frame. So if you just take a step back and look what happened, we had a very difficult year last year with the number of groundings increasing we have recovered from that. Thanks to the fact that we got the new plane coming in pretty much every week. We have been able to address that capacity situation. And with that growth, we are very confident that we will deliver up our capacity guidance again for the year FY '25, which is in the early double digit.

Right. And second question is regarding your fuel costs. So despite higher damp leases, I think there has been some efficiency, which has been seen in the fuel CASK. So any specific reason there?

I don't think there's any specific efficiency. There's some -- has been some drop in the prices of fuel year-over-year. We've seen that it, and that's it. There's no been so specific. Of course, we have a whole range of programs looking at fuel efficiency. But if we look at the numbers which are here, there's no specific efficiency included in this.

The next question is from the line of Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital.

My question is on fuel cost. So if I look at this quarter, the fuel cost has more or less mirrored ETF price trend, which is down on a Y-o-Y basis. However, if I look at the last quarter, the trend was inverse. I mean, the fuel prices were down, but the fuel cost was up. However, in this quarter, the trend is slightly different but the retail that you highlighted, I mean, the condition issue part you spoke of or for example, the VAT rate increase that you had highlighted, the reasons are more or less the same but the trend is different. So can you highlight what are the specific reasons for the trends to reversed in both the quarters?

I don't think so the trends are different. The trends are alike. We have experienced the same kind of reduction last quarter but some of these reductions that we have seen, both in terms of [indiscernible] are getting offset by what we've mentioned the last time also, was because of increased VAT that we had already started to see some increases because of all marketing companies, charges that they've kind of adjusted as well as a lot of congestion that we had started to experience, which will lead to a higher fuel burn. So similar to this quarter that we've kind of called out, the fuel CASK adjusted by 20 points year-over-year, what is getting reflected for us is around 16 points. So there is some erosion that happens while it should have been higher. But because of the headwinds that we've seen, both in terms of increased VAT, increased congestion that we've experienced, some ForEx-related and all marketing company charges, the moderation has happened on that particular CASK number. And it's quite similar to what happened in Q2 also.

Okay. Sir, my second question is on the AOG count. You mentioned that it has been high 60s and from the start of the next fiscal, it should be 40. So ideally, the environment on AOG is expected to improve the wet lease count ideally sequential basis should have declined but that has increased from 25 to 33. So does this mean that the AOG issue will take a bit longer to resolve than what we have been guiding?

No. A flat clear answer to that. I think we have -- we adjust the situation with the leases as per our desire to match the market demand and accommodate the growth which is there. And if you look at the third quarter and you see that we recorded for the longest period in the history of IndiGo, a load factor of 90% every day, and again, 2 consecutive months, more than 90% load factor. That just underlines that we've taken the right call by making sure we have adequate capacity in place. Let me correct you when you said high 60s. I think that's not what Gaurav mentioned. He said 60s without any further definition. Where we were in the 70s, we're now in the 60s, and we expect that to continue to decline going forward. So we keep some flexibility of these leases going forward. There are some seasonal effects, which are clearly helpful in having this. And basically, we have the flexibility on a quarter basis to further tune to further align and as we basically have demonstrated for this strong quarter.

Next question is from the line of [ Kushagra ] from Chanakya Wealth Creation.

Just 2 questions. One, on the gross spread side, which is your RASK minus fuel cost, the third quarter number was probably 1 of the best. So is this sort of an indication that your numbers on the gross spread side are shifting higher base for longer? And if do you believe so, do you see it playing out both on the domestic and the international side? So maybe some color there. And also, some color on the third quarter domestic and international yields. That's my first question. The second question is really just a small one qualitatively. Again, on the new Aviation Bill. So do you see this bringing any benefit to you on the cost side, on the leasing side or operationally? Or there are still early days on the new Aviation Bill? Yes, those were my questions.

First on the last question on the Aviation Bill. It's a positive thing like that it's been at least approved by the cabinet. Let's wait for it to get a ratified in parliament. It's long overdue. Given the growth that we are seeing in aviation, obviously, all airlines need a lot of capital and such kind of an acknowledgment that will come from the government related to a convention, which is a global convention, will obviously boost a lot of confidence for the global lessors to start participating as far as financing aviation is concerned. So it's a positive move, and we are eagerly waiting for it to get at least ratified in the parliament. It's long overdue in that regard. Related to yields you, the question you had, obviously, we've seen yields slightly moderated down versus last year, like I mentioned, 1 point down on the domestic side. But the load factors came in stronger. But as far as international is concerned, obviously, the loads came in stronger but there was a higher degree of moderation given the intensity of capacity addition as well as more interest by foreign airlines to participate in India. So what you've seen is domestic is doing good. There's at least the yield is holding up as well as the load factors have held up. But on the international side, the intensity of competition went a little higher. So there was a higher degree of moderation that happened on that part. But nonetheless, the demand is very strong. So it's getting offset by the demand. We'll continue to keep monitoring again as we've given the guidance for Q4. There's a 20% increase in capacity that we are seeing. It will again be spread between domestic and international, more so international given we had a strong Q3. You refer to Q3 in terms of this rate. Domestic wise, Q3 is always the strongest. So that's played out well. It's played out even better than what we had guided during our Q2 call. And now like I said in Q4, we will see some bit of a moderation on the passenger unit cost side. So we're expecting at least the yield to be lower because last year, year-over-year, the yields were very, very strong, given the capacity was less. We had taken down a lot of airline because of AOG. So as a result, industry-wide, there was less number of aircrafts. This time around, we are adding capacity. But overall, we expect the quarter to be strong given what we've seen from a March standpoint, November, December and early part of January have been very, very strong for us.

Next question is from the line of Sidharth Negandhi from [ Alitis Advisory. ]

I wanted to understand your fleet addition -- just give me a second. I wanted to understand your fleet addition has been 22% higher versus December last year, whereas your available seat kilometers are 12% higher, meaning you're adding shorter routes, or are these due to an increase in any other factor? That's one. The second question that I wanted to understand is, again, in relation to this, if the available seat kilometers are higher by 2%, then why is our rental costs going up by 22%? What is the impact of these wet leases? And when do we expect the wet lease number to come down significantly, thereby reducing the rental cost?

Well, let me address the first question. We are comparing quarter end or year-end to year-end. And if in 1 year there's a lot of deliveries at the beginning of the quarter, in another year, there's a lot of deliveries at the end of the quarter, it sort of distorts the percentages. So that you cannot make the calculation as you just did. It's just sort of point in time where we compare 1 point in time to the other point in time. So that -- it doesn't suggest a different utilization or another utilization. In fact, the IndiGo utilization remains at a very, very high level and at a very stable level really when it comes to aircraft utilization itself. So that -- you cannot translate that to the 12% growth. I think what is important and an incredible asset IndiGo has, the fact that IndiGo has the largest order book in the world, and we still have a little over 900 planes to be delivered in the decade to come, is providing IndiGo a very solid strategic position. So if we take a little bit step back from the sort of quarterly results up, down, ASKs 12%, 11%, every week, there's a new plane coming in for the next decade. That in itself will provide us with such a steady flow of capacity to address the growing demand in India. So you will see more of these sort of percentages going up and down depending on the delivery of the planes but there's no relation to that exact number you were calling out.

Okay. And on the rental costs, which have gone up by 23% versus the capacity addition, which is at 12%. Given that, when do we expect this wet lease situation? And is that entirely due to wet lease? If so, when do we expect the wet lease situation to improve and for us to continue to operate on operating leases, bringing this cost down?

I think we should -- again, I'm sorry to say these numbers are not comparable. The capacity increase of 12% is the entire fleet, it's wet leases, it is the basis fleet, it's the fleet, which is coming in, it's everything. So the whole lot year-over-year is 12%. Then there is a certain set of external sort of lease in, damp lease in capacity, and there we see some increased rental cost. That is again year-over-year an increase of that. To your point, what can we expect it to disappear. We are doing a lot of that at the moment to address the capacity situation. I think going forward and probably not the next 2 quarters but thereafter, we would need to start to make a differentiation between what all are we're doing to deal with seasonal capacity fluctuations and what all are we doing to deal with the aircraft on the ground and supply chain challenges. For the time being, the key driver is to deal with the supply chain challenges. It has served IndiGo extremely well in terms of serving the demand, keeping our market position, building our network, creating a customer basis. So we'll continue to do that going forward. And at one point in time, there's going to be sort of a focus on seasonal fluctuations over the AOG situation.

[indiscernible] that you mentioned and the fact that there is...

Mr. Sidharth, your voice is Breaking. We are losing your audio. May I request to come back for a follow-up question.

Is this better?

Go ahead.

Yes. So you mentioned 1 aircraft delivery per week at 12 weeks, if I had to assume 12 aircraft there, 8 aircraft increased on wet lease side. Is that, therefore, fair to say that the total capacity addition quarter-on-quarter is 27 and therefore, 7 is the AOG reversal?

No, you cannot say it exactly like that. But perhaps there's a lot of detail. May I suggest you can get in touch with the IR team directly, and they will be able to help you further.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take the last question from the line of Ansuman Deb from ICICI Securities.

My question was regarding the business class that we have launched. Globally, we have seen very good results on premium classes and multiple airlines have kind of indicated that. Surely, we would also reap some of these benefits going ahead. If you can give some color on the initial experience and expected help in the overall spread that we can see maybe in FY '26 and FY '27, any ballpark thing that we have done or outlook you can share?

Well, thank you for bringing up this question. I think this is a very nice question to have last question. Indeed, globally and in some other markets, we see a surge of the premium demand and airlines who have that are able to benefit from that. I think what IndiGo actually is doing today is making sure that we're ahead of the curve. So we're introducing something new where -- which is exactly matching the evolving needs of the Indian consumers. And we've started it only in the middle of November. So it's still very in a nascent stage. We started with 6 flights. And by the end of the year, all our 40 sectors, we fly 40 sectors a day, 20 each direction between Delhi and Mumbai were operated with this new product. The reactions from the market have been very, very positive. People appreciate the products. People are sort of welcoming it and to say, "hey, that's a great opportunity." In doing it, we have launched it on Jan 10 on Delhi and Bangalore. So that point in time, all the flights between Delhi and Mumbai were done, and we are now on Delhi-Bangalore. Same story, very positive reduction of that in the market. Of course, the Christmas time is not -- for business travel is not the busiest time of the year. But the weeks prior and the week after, we really see very positive momentum in the market. And the fact that we offer this product to our customers is really received very, very well. And again, I just like to reiterate what I said earlier. It is exactly the combination of all these elements, loyalty program, this new product in the market. We will have 40 planes by the end of '26 -- sorry, by the end of the calendar year '25. We'll have 40 to 45 planes of this in operation and only metro-to-metro routes, which have been selected out there. You asked for the impact. I don't think we have a precise number out here for you. The very core of the operation will be still what we have today. But this is actually a very tailor-made solution, and we keep all options open going forward if we should expand it to other regions or other parts of the network. But again, having 40 to 45 planes in this configuration on a total of 400 planes, it gives you a bit of an indication on the magnitude of it. It is a substantial part of it. And again, our confidence in it is growing, seeing the reactions from our customers.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be our last question for today. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Pieter Elbers for closing comments.

Thank you so much. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us in this call. And actually, we're proud to have delivered a strong third quarter results as excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, we reported a profit after tax of around INR 38.5 billion, INR 3,850 crores. This reflects a growth of around 26% on a year-over-year basis. Our remarkable performance was driven by robust demand and growing demand in the market and our ability to serve that demand. As the fundamentals of the Indian aviation industry remain strong, we are confident in our ability to cater to the evolving customer demands along with delivering on our key customer promises. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, once again, thank you for joining and looking forward to talking to you in the next quarter. And for now, thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of IndiGo, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.