SpiceJet's resurgence, once the new funding is in place, has the potential to disrupt the Indian aviation market in 2024 as the airline will bring its grounded aircraft back to service and lease as many planes as possible to be competitively relevant, aviation consultancy firm Capa India said on Thursday. "Although the market for procuring aircraft in 2024 is exceptionally tight, we expect that SpiceJet will bring stored aircraft back into operations, and will wet or dry lease as much capacity as possible, in order to be competitively relevant. "This will have a material impact on the industry structure, and possibly on domestic profitability," Capa India said in its report.
IndiGo promoter Rakesh Gangwal has written a letter to markets regulator Sebi flagging governance issues at the company and has accused fellow co-founder Rahul Bhatia and his firms of indulging in questionable related-party transactions.
The Delhi airport, the country's busiest airport, on Friday early morning witnessed the collapse of a roof at Terminal 1 amid heavy rains that killed one person, prompting the government to order a detailed probe and an inspection of the structural strength of all airports.
Experts expect a net loss of Rs 26.7 billion for IndiGo and Rs 10.1 billion for SpiceJet in Q1FY21 driven by low traffic volume, low fleet utilisation and poor coverage of fixed costs.
On February 19, India's largest private low-fare airline IndiGo announced the resignation of one of the two founders, Rakesh Gangwal, from the airline's board and his intentions of offloading his stake in the airline over the next five years. The announcement came on a Friday, giving the stock markets the weekend to absorb the news but the markets registered a tepid response on Monday's opening. In contrast, in July 2019, when the fight between the two founders and erstwhile friends first became public, the markets reacted savagely. The IndiGo scrip at the time fell 19 per cent, wiping out millions of rupees of shareholder wealth before bouncing back. For readers who may be hazy on the details of the dispute, here is the context.
He said that the Sri Lankan authorities have arrested more of their associates but it won't be right to reveal any more details on them as the investigation is going on.
Airfares on major domestic routes such as Kolkata-Bagdogra, Delhi-Bengaluru, and Delhi-Mumbai have witnessed an increase of up to 12.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in May this year, according to data by Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel. The recent increase in aviation turbine fuel prices, rupee depreciation, reduction of flights by key players, and grounding of planes due to engine supply issues have contributed to the rise in airfares, said aviation industry experts. However, the data also shows that summer airfares on key routes such as Delhi-Leh and Delhi-Kolkata have significantly decreased due to the introduction of new flights.
IndiGo and GoAir, which have Pratt & Whitney-powered Airbus A320 Neo planes, have been facing problems with these engines, manufactured by the US firm, since their induction three years ago.
Industries such as aviation and hospitality have many silos within them and Aionos, the joint venture between Interglobe Enterprises (IGE) and Assago Group, is an attempt to bridge them and boost efficiencies using artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, Rahul Bhatia told Business Standard on Tuesday. Bhatia, the Group Managing Director of IGE, serves as the majority shareholder in India's largest airline, IndiGo. Additionally, IGE operates 21 hotels under the Ibis brand and runs a logistics company called Movin.
IndiGo has confirmed the delivery of the next set of 25 ATR-72 jets and will be inducting around 10 planes by the end of this calendar year, making it the largest regional fleet operator in the country.
Tech titan Google on Wednesday launched the Google Wallet app for Android users in India, allowing them to securely store essentials like boarding passes, loyalty cards, event tickets, and public transport passes. The digital wallet, which becomes operational in India from Wednesday, comes as a complementary service to existing payment app Google Pay, a top official said.
It is for the first time in the history of IndiGo that we have undertaken such a painful measure, CEO Ronojoy Dutta said.
The genesis of the arbitration lies in a bitter public battle that began in July when Rakesh Gangwal wrote to capital market regulator Sebi alleging lack of corporate governance in the company. He alleged that Rahul Bhatia, who holds controlling power of the company, had used it to execute questionable related-party transactions.
The airline will be inducting large number of A321s this year which will be largely used on international routes and high density domestic routes.
Airfares have nearly doubled in a matter of days on routes hit by the cancellation of 200 weekly flights linking Mumbai airport to 12 cities. The fares have soared as high as 193 per cent following a recent government order to cancel flights to ease "persistent congestion" that was causing delays. Aside from the reduction in flights on 12 routes, two destinations - Hubli and Jabalpur - have lost connectivity with Mumbai since last week, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data reviewed
According to the annual report, Ronojoy Dutta's remuneration package includes a gross annual salary of $1.27 million, which would be payable in rupees. Also, he is entitled for a commitment bonus payout. In FY20, he received a remuneration of Rs 11.4 crore in his role as CEO and whole-time director.
Based on the Skytrax ranking for 2018, IndiGo is number two among the best low-cost carriers in Asia, behind rival AirAsia.
Nearly 200 of the 789 aircraft of Indian carriers are expected to be grounded by the end of March due to ongoing supply chain issues, according to the report released on Monday by CAPA India. At present, 161-166 aircraft are grounded. "More aircraft will be on the ground than expected due to serious supply chain issues, which were supposed to improve but actually deteriorated," it noted.
The winners of Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2024 have been revealed.
Sources in the government said the roof that collapsed at T1 was constructed during 2008-09 and that the work was contracted out by GMR to private contractors.
Kamra allegedly heckled Goswami, the editor of Republic TV, on IndiGo's Mumbai-Lucknow (6E5317) flight on Tuesday.
Of the 48 flights, which are not being operated as part of the curtailed schedule, 42 are of IndiGo and six of GoAir.
Equity trading volumes, both in the cash and derivatives segments, dropped in March amid wild swings in stock prices. The average daily trading volume for the cash segment (National Stock Exchange, or NSE, and BSE combined) fell by 16.3 per cent to Rs 1.07 trillion - the lowest since November 2023. Market players said the drop could have been sharper if not for the large block deals in companies such as ITC, Tata Consultancy Services, and IndiGo seen during the month.
From steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services were among the prominent buyers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations.
An average Indian couple spends around 2x on weddings versus education (pre-primary to graduation).
In June IndiGo had implemented a mandatory leave without pay program for 1.5 days to 5 days. Subsequently, in July, IndiGo announced 5.5 additional days of LWP for its pilots, taking the effective number of LWP to 10 days. As cost cutting measure, the airline had also let go of 10 per cent of its employees and implemented a pay cut across the board.
'This trend will continue as long as the bull run continues.'
While IndiGo had 11.8 per cent of all the international seats to and fro India in the last week of August, Air India's seat share was 11.4 per cent. Emirates came third with 8.1 per cent, and rest of the airlines constituted 68 per cent of the seat share.
IndiGo has been facing a probe by Sebi ever since a public spat came to light between two founders of the airline, including over certain related party transactions involving one of the warring promoters.
Analysts remain sceptical on the profitability from freighter business, saying that once normal air transport resumes and there's abundant belly capacity, the traditional economics of air cargo may not be that lucrative.
IndiGo has proposed to issue 185,000 shares worth to Chief Executive and Whole-time Director Ronojoy Dutta under the company's Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP). The shares that can be exercised at a price of Rs 765 apiece is worth Rs 14,15,25,000. Dutta can exercise 25 per cent of that at the end of first year, 35 per cent at the end of second year, and the remaining in December 2023 when his current tenure ends.
Lessor market sources said with the fuel prices remaining high, IndiGo would get better rates for the fuel-efficient A320neos.
IndiGo's co-founder and interim CEO Rahul Bhatia said profitability was significantly impacted by costs pressure from the increases in fuel price and the depreciation of rupee as well as competitive fare environment.
'IndiGo 2018 is a harsh, ultra-lean, mean, zero asset, fighting machine with aspirations of taking on the global long-haul low-cost market.'
The safety and security of citizens is primary for the government, he said.
The introduction of these new flights would help IndiGo cross 650 flights mark as the it would offer a total of 671 flights per day connecting 39 destinations.
IndiGo's president and director Aditya Ghosh apologised for the incident and said stern action was taken against an airline staff for manhandling the passenger.
The carrier said for domestic flights the fees for cancellation and changes would now be Rs 3,500 and Rs 3,000 respectively, if it was done within three days of the flight's departure. Before this announcement, IndiGo charged a flat rate of Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,500 for cancellation and detail changes on domestic tickets.
IndiGo, India's largest airline, is in talks to raise fresh funds as a second wave of pandemic has led to collapse in travel demand. The airline may look to raise Rs 3,500-4,000 crore. On Monday, only 97,761 passengers flew. With flyers cancelling bookings, airlines had to put aside flights and operated only 1,306 of them.
The founders of IndiGo may have thought it's time to go for a rejig of the top leadership team which can take care of the growing demands of an airline that has grown much bigger than they could have ever imagined, says Shyamal Majumdar.
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