Budget airline SpiceJet on Tuesday reported a 22 per cent jump in profit to Rs 56.3 crore in the quarter ended March as against Rs 46 crore in the corresponding period of the last fiscal, as it flew more customers and was able to raise prices. The revenue stood up by 25.3 per cent to Rs 2,531.2 in Q4FY19 as against Rs 71 crore in Q4FY18, the company said in a BSE filing. EBITDA rose by 55.3 per cent to Rs 110.4 crore as against Rs 71 crore in the fourth quarter of FY18. The margin stood up by 90 bps to 4.4 per cent compared with 3.5 per cent in the same period of the last fiscal, the company said.
The standalone net profit, excluding earnings of units SpiceJet Merchandise, SpiceJet Technic and Canvin Real Estate, stood at 562.9 million rupees in the March quarter from 461.5 million rupees in the same period a year earlier. The average fares surged 11 per cent in the quarter under review even as capacity in terms of seat-kilometres rose 21 per cent, the company also said.
Also read: PNB narrows Q4 loss to Rs 4,750 cr: key figures in nutshell
“SpiceJet has posted a strong recovery in the last two quarters after suffering a loss of INR 427.5 crore in the first two quarters due to steep increase in fuel costs and sudden depreciation of the Rupee. This recovery comes despite the unprecedented challenges we faced during Q4 FY2019 which saw the grounding of as many as 13 of our MAX planes”, Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet said.
Meanwhile, Interglobe Aviation (IndiGo) posted a five-time surge in its January-March profit. The airline reported a net profit of Rs 589.6 crore in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019 up from Rs 117.6 crore in the corresponding period of previous financial year.