Interglobe Aviation, the owner of India’s largest airline by market share IndiGo, reported a 73.3 per cent decline in March profit after tax pulled down by higher fuel prices, grounded aircrafts in March coupled with weaker rupee.

The results were significant given that the company CEO Aditya Ghosh, who was part of the airline's founding team, resigned in March.

During an investor call post results announcement, co-Founder and interim CEO, Rahul Bhatia, announced that the board is considering appointing former executive Gregory Taylor as its next CEO.

“Aditya Ghosh has resigned and will leave the company on July 31. Aditya wishes to explore starting a new business venture and we respect his decision to do so. I am excited to announce the return of Gregory Taylor as Senior Advisor to the company, who would be reporting directly to me. The board of directors will consider his appointment as President and CEO of the company subject to receiving necessary regulatory approvals and paperwork,” Bhatia said.

The quarter was also impacted by issues with some Pratt & Whitney engines in IndiGo’s A320neos, which forced the DGCA to ground the aircrafts.

“As we received new engines from Pratt and Whitney, we have replaced all the affected engines and these planes are now back in service," Bhatia said.

Revenue from operations of ₹5,799 crore for the quarter ended March 2018, an increase of 19.6 per cent compared to the same period last year.

However, profit after tax of ₹117 crore for the quarter ended March 2018 fell as much as 73.3 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The company said that results include certain credits received from manufacturers to offset some of the impact of aircraft groundings and delivery delays.

For full year ended March 2018, revenue from operations came in at ₹23,020 crore, implying an increase of nearly 24 percent compared to last year. On a full year basis, profit after tax of ₹2,242 crore for the year ended March 2018, an increase of 35.1 per cent compared to last year.

For the quarter, IndiGo saw its passenger ticket revenues at ₹5,019 crore, showing a robust increase of 17.9 per cent and ancillary revenues were ₹666 crore, recording an increase of 21.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The total debt as on March 31, 2018, was ₹2452.7 crore.

“The entire debt for lndiGo is aircraft related. lndiGo does not have any working capital debt,” the airline said.

Talking about IndiGo’s plans to withdraw its plans to bid for Air India, Bhatia said: “We were very interested in the acquisition of Air India's international operations and Air India Express. Unfortunately, that option is not available under the government's current plan of Air India. Having said this, we continue to look at long haul opportunity without Air India."

He said the company is in talks with the regulators for approval of long haul routes and is looking at options for wide body aircrafts for the same.

IndiGo operated a fleet of 159 aircraft including 32 A320neos and 6 ATRs in the quarter, an increase of six aircraft during the quarter and operated a peak of 1.086 daily flights, including international operations during the quarter.

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