Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026 earnings call. We have with us our Managing Director, Rahul Bhatia, 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 day end.

The transcript of the Q&A session will be uploaded subsequently. With this, let me hand over the call to Rahul Bhatia.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this call. We announced our fourth quarter and financial year 2026 results today.

This quarter, we reported a loss of ₹25.4 billion, and for the financial year ended March 2026, a loss of ₹23.9 billion. As you are aware, the past year has been one of the most demanding periods for the Indian aviation industry.

We navigated a landscape shaped by repeated external disruptions. The year reinforced that disciplined execution and organizational resilience remain fundamental to sustaining operations in a volatile environment.

Gaurav will discuss the financial outcome in detail in a short while. First and foremost, let me address the events of December with candor and clarity.

Not only did the December disruption cause a significant impact on our results, what transpired fell short of the standards we set for ourselves when we began this journey in 2006. Our customers deserve better.

We are committed to the service standards we set for ourselves and the customer promise that has differentiated IndiGo over the years. I am grateful to the 123 million customers who chose to fly with IndiGo during the financial year, and for their patience, understanding, and continued trust during the disruption.

At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the extraordinary professionalism, resilience, and sense of responsibility demonstrated by our frontline colleagues and operational teams in exceptionally demanding circumstances. Their commitment and dignity under pressure truly reflects the spirit of IndiGo.

My colleagues worked with unwavering commitment, often through long hours, intense pressure, and considerable personal sacrifice to stabilize operations, restore system integrity, and bring the airline back to normalcy. I am equally grateful to our broader stakeholder community, including the government of India, the regulators, airport operators, partners, and suppliers for their strong cooperation and support through this difficult period.

Since December, we have further strengthened resilience and execution discipline across the airline. This is evident in outcomes with us consistently leading in on-time performance across the last quarter, clearly demonstrating the speed and effectiveness with which operational efficiency has been restored.

Further, from March onwards, the escalation of geopolitical conflict in the Middle East has led to severe route disruptions and a sharp increase in jet fuel prices. In response, airlines globally, including IndiGo, were required to take certain short-term measures to protect operational viability.

As IndiGo steps into its next phase of growth, scale, and global expansion, we have taken decisive steps to further strengthen our leadership. During the quarter, the board has appointed Willie Walsh as IndiGo's new Chief Executive Officer, and he is expected to join us from early August.

Willie brings over four decades of deep global aviation experience. His proven leadership positions IndiGo well for its next stage of evolution.

Alongside this, we have continued to build the leadership depth across the organization with the appointment of Aloke Singh as the Chief Strategy Officer. As IndiGo grows, we are strengthening leadership across the organization, investing in people, building depth, and placing accountability close to operations.

Ultimately, the progress we make as an airline will be driven by our people. Whilst the current external environment remains uncertain and volatile, IndiGo's long-term direction remains unaltered.

We continue to execute our strategy with discipline and consistency, remaining focused on the long-term fundamentals and opportunity. Kindly allow me now to hand over the call to Gaurav to discuss the financial performance in detail.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rahul, and good evening, everyone. Looking back at the financial year 2026, it was shaped by a series of external and operational challenges across the year.

The first quarter was impacted by geopolitical developments in the Indian subcontinent that affected capacity deployment and operating conditions across more than 10 airports in India. The second quarter is a seasonally soft quarter for the industry, and during that period, we took a deliberate call to rationalize capacity in line with demand.

The third quarter was the most challenging for us operationally, as the disruption in December impacted our performance. In the fourth quarter, just as the demand was normalizing, the developments in the Middle East introduced fresh disruptions through airspace constraints, network challenges, and selective travel deferrals.

With this background, both our capacity deployment and demand were impacted. Against a seat growth of around 5%, our passenger grew by around 4%, and we clocked an ASK growth of 9.5% with an RPK growth of 7.5%.

Despite these challenges, we did serve more than 123 million passengers in FY 2026, the highest ever. Now for the financial performance, starting with the full year ended March 2026, on a consolidated basis, we reported a total income of around ₹895 billion, a growth of 6.4% versus the last year, with a net loss of ₹23.9 billion.

The primary drivers of the loss was a significant impact of foreign exchange movement, where the rupee has depreciated by more than 11% against the US dollar in just 12 months, one of the steepest decline in many years. Additionally, we reported exceptional items in Q3 and Q4 on account of adoption of the December disruption and the new labor code.

Despite significant external volatility, if we were to analyze the financial performance excluding the impact of foreign exchange and the exceptional items, IndiGo delivered an underlying net profit of ₹75 billion in FY 2026 as compared to ₹89 billion in FY 2025. Furthermore, in addition to the ₹5.8 billion reported as exceptional for the December disruption, as per our assessment, we had an incremental impact of approximately ₹15 to ₹16 billion on account of lower capacity and reduced unit revenues.

Factoring these one-off events, our performance for the year would have been meaningfully stronger and as compared to the prior year. Now for the year ended March 2026, we reported an EBITDAR, excluding the impact of foreign exchange movement, of ₹231.9 billion with a margin of 27.3%, compared to an EBITDAR of ₹228.6 billion with a margin of 28.3% during the year ended March 2025.

Now moving to the fourth quarter performance, the first two months of the quarter reflected a clear operational recovery for IndiGo following the disruption experienced in December. Network stability improved materially, schedules were brought back in line progressively, and operating discipline was reestablished across the system.

In terms of the demand environment, first half of January continued to carry some residual impact of the December disruption. While conditions stabilized through February, the demand was disrupted again in March by the escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

Again, to remind you, the point of comparison here is a very high base of last year due to the religious festival of Mahakumbh. The Middle Eastern developments have had a meaningful impact on our international operations, disrupting flights to the region as well as to Europe.

Together, these markets represent 18% of our total capacity and approximately 160 daily flights, and this weighed on the utilization and the revenue towards the end of the quarter. On capacity, we were tracking broadly in line with our planned growth trajectory, with capacity going up by around 10% year-over-year through January and February.

However, the escalation of the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East led to flight cancellations and network disruptions and also impacted our operations to UK and Europe as well. As a result, our overall capacity growth for the quarter came in at 3%, which was lower than the initially planned capacity.

For the quarter ended March 2026, we reported a total income of around ₹238 billion, an increase of around 3%. The EBITDAR, excluding the impact of foreign exchange movement, came in at ₹64.4 billion with a margin of 28.7%, compared to an EBITDAR of ₹68.6 billion with a margin of 31% during the same period last year.

The quarter had a net loss of ₹25.4 billion compared to a net profit of ₹30.7 billion during the same period last year. Again, to remind you, the point of comparison here is a very high base of last year due to the religious festival of Mahakumbh.

As the quarter ended, the rupee depreciated sharply by around 5% against the US dollar, resulting in a foreign exchange loss of ₹48.2 billion. As has been explained in earlier calls, the foreign exchange losses are largely mark-to-market losses and are primarily recognized on lease liabilities and maintenance accruals, which are long-term in nature and payable over a period of 8 to 10 years from the cash flow standpoint.

Additionally, as explained in the last quarter, the government of India has consolidated multiple existing labor legislations into a unified framework comprising four new labor codes. We have evaluated the incremental impact arising from the implementation of the new labor code, and based on a revised estimate, we have recognized an additional impact of around ₹2.5 billion.

The total provision for the financial year 2026 is ₹12.2 billion. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange movement and exceptional items, we reported a net profit of ₹19.2 billion for the March quarter versus a net profit of ₹29.8 billion during the same period last year.

As guided during the last earnings calls, the passenger unit revenue, PRASK, came in at ₹4.46, which is 4 points lower on a year-over-year basis. This is largely due to the higher base of Mahakumbh in quarter four of 2025.

Now on the cost side, fuel price volatility has intensified sharply following recent geopolitical developments in the Middle East. Benchmark jet fuel prices have spiked significantly over the past 3 months, materially impacting operating economics across markets.

On the domestic front of our operations, the supportive and timely intervention by the government and the oil marketing companies and airports to significantly soften and partially pass on the impact of global fuel price increases, not only did this enable us to calibrate our fuel charge, but also allowed us to respond to cost pressures in a prudent manner. For clarity, for a large part of our business, there is a natural lag in reflection of fuel price movements.

Aviation turbine fuel prices are notified by oil marketing companies on the first of each month based on the prevailing international fuel price indices and currency movements of the last month. As a result, changes in the global fuel price trend tends to follow through on our fuel CASK with a roughly 1-month lag rather than on a real-time basis.

Therefore, our fuel CASK for the quarter has not been impacted materially in Q4 2026, rather reduced by around 5% on a year-over-year basis, primarily driven by reduction in benchmark Singapore jet fuel prices. The CASK ex-fuel ex-forex for the quarter came in at ₹3.15, which is higher by around 7 percentage points compared to the same period last year, 2025, primarily due to inflated dollar-denominated costs due to depreciation of the Indian rupee at an average of 5%, as more than 50% of our costs are dollar-denominated.

Additionally, lower aircraft utilization due to the airspace restrictions and the recent development in the Middle East has also impacted the CASK ex-fuel ex-forex. The annual contractual increases across line items such as airport charges and maintenance also added to the CASK ex-fuel ex-forex.

On the AOG situation, our Pratt & Whitney-related groundings are currently in the 40s and are expected to trend downwards by the end of the year in the 30s. At this point, we do not have further guidance from the OEMs beyond this point.

While the operating environment remains volatile in the near term, our focus has remained firmly on disciplined execution on our long-term strategy. We have stayed anchored to our core principles: scale with discipline, enhance balance sheet strength, and invest selectively in areas that strengthen the franchise.

On the fleet front, we are executing with one of the largest aircraft pipelines globally. During the financial year, we inducted 51 aircraft from our original order book.

In addition, we also inducted 21 aircraft on damp lease basis, thus adding 72 aircraft on a gross basis. We also redelivered 73 aircraft from our original order book and 28 damp leases during the financial year, resulting in a fleet of 441 aircraft at the end of FY 2026.

On the network side, at the end of the fiscal year 2026, we operated 97 domestic and 45 international destinations. Over the last financial year, we have steadily expanded our international footprint with the announcement of new destinations such as Réunion Island and Shanghai across new regions, while continuing to deepen our connectivity within India, including at newer and underserved airports.

During the financial year, we inducted India's first A321XLR. The A321XLR is a central pillar of our international strategy.

It allows IndiGo to connect long-haul international markets directly from India. We have already deployed the XLR on services to high-potential markets such as Athens and Istanbul.

An additional XLR aircraft joins the fleet. We intend to progressively expand this footprint across select Asian and European destinations.

Moving to the balance sheet side, we ended the year with a capitalized operating lease liability of around ₹535 billion and a total debt, including the capitalized operating lease liability, of ₹777 billion. On the right-of-use assets at quarter-end were around ₹521 billion.

We continue to maintain strong liquidity as we ended the year with a total cash of around ₹516 billion, of which ₹362 billion is free cash and restricted cash of ₹154 billion. Globally, if you look at most of the well-run carriers, they operate with liquidity levels of around 20% to 25% of their annual revenue.

Against this global backdrop, our balance sheet strength and rich liquidity remains a clear focus of strategic advantage and allows us to invest today for the future. The total cash has increased by ₹437 million during the quarter as compared to profits excluding forex impact and exceptional items of ₹19.2 billion, primarily due to cash utilization in the form of purchases of aircraft and also due to reduction in forward sales.

We have remained prudent in our capital allocation, prioritizing fleet, operational capability, and long-term efficiency while protecting the balance sheet strength. Investments made during the year are aligned with strengthening the core operations and future growth.

We are actively deploying free cash to accelerate aircraft loan prepayments and increase our fleet ownership. During the year, we have announced a capital investment of $820 million in GIFT City entity to be deployed primarily towards acquisition of aviation assets, and we have prepaid loans of 17 aircraft.

With this, now we have 36 aircraft as unencumbered assets in our book, aggregating more than ₹95 billion of book value. Additionally, we have 53 aircraft on finance lease with underlying ownership, and this investment also adds to our balance sheet strength.

This is a strategic choice aimed at enhancing asset control, reducing risk, and strengthening the durability of our balance sheet over the long term. We view this as an ongoing lever and will continue to explore similar opportunities with increased ownership meaningfully strengthening the balance sheet.

Further, we have also prepaid some of finance lease obligations towards our GIFT City entity, aggregating to around $450 million, or ₹43.4 billion. Such funds will be utilized towards acquisition of aircraft and engines through our GIFT City entity.

We announced the development of an integrated corporate campus, reflecting a long-term investment in organizational scale, collaboration, and operational effectiveness as we continue to grow and scale. It reflects our confidence in the long-term growth of the business and our intent to build durable institutional infrastructure.

We continue to invest in our loyalty platform, the BluChip. During the year, BluChip ecosystem has more than 11 million registered members and spans banking relationships through multiple co-branded cards such as SBI Card, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, and IDFC FIRST Bank.

Hospitality and partnerships include the Postcard Hotel, and everyday spends and lifestyle partners such as Swiggy, EazyDiner, and the Adani Duty Free. Our focus is on building asset-light programs that strengthen the customer ecosystem and support revenue quality over time, while remaining economically disciplined.

Further, given the financial performance of the year and the position of distributable reserves, we have decided not to recommend a dividend for FY 2026. With the capacity deployment the last 2 months, wherein Middle East has seen an upward trajectory through April and May, we are expecting to add capacity of around 3% to 4% in the Q1 quarter of 2027 as compared to the same period last year.

Further, on the revenue side, based on booking and pricing trends observed across April and May, we currently estimate a mid-teens improvement in the unit passenger revenue in quarter one of FY 2027 versus the quarter FY 2026, primarily driven by calibrated fuel charges which have been passed and a lower base during the same period last year due to geopolitical developments in the Indian subcontinent. However, it's equally important to note that the costs have also become more elevated, driven by higher fuel prices, significant rupee depreciation, and the contractual escalation, which are annual.

Further, as we enter into a seasonally softer demand environment from mid-June onwards, combined with elevated fuel levels, we are adopting a measured approach to optimizing capacity. As part of this, selective recalibration of certain routes is warranted to protect margin, as was done last year as well.

This optimization will involve reducing the usage of older generation aircraft and returning certain narrow-body damp-leased aircraft that are naturally more expensive. Additionally, we are also in discussion with our wide-body ACMI partner to optimize our long-haul operations due to ongoing airspace restrictions and elevated fuel costs.

Now in closing, while near-term conditions remain fluid, the strength of our network, cost discipline, balance sheet continues to support resilient operating fundamentals. These provide us with the confidence to stay on the course in our long-term strategy, invest selectively, and manage volatility with discipline.

As a result, we remain well positioned to deliver a consistent performance and long-term shareholder value. With this, let me hand it back to Richa.

Thank you, Rahul and Gaurav. To answer as many questions as possible, I would like to request that each participant limit themselves to one question and one brief follow-up question if needed.

With that, we're ready for the Q&A.

Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity.

Just picking up from the opening remarks when you talk about mid-teens yield increase or revenue per passenger increase. Are you able to fully pass on the cost pressures with that?

If you could comment both on the international side and domestic side, and also a little bit about how are the utilization rates? When you say 3% to 4% growth, what is the break-up of domestic, international?

That's it. Thanks.

Binay, as you're aware, the fuel prices have gone up significantly. Practically the SingJet went up by more than 100 points.

While there has been an intervention and support that has been passed on both from the government as well as from the oil marketing companies, where the increase on the fuel has been to the tune of 25% to 30%. On the international side, the fuel continues to be on a much higher kind of a scale at market prices.

We did introduce a fuel charge to pass on some of those costs related to the increase that has happened. On the domestic side, we have managed to recover, to a large part, the increased costs that is there, which is, like I mentioned, lower than what the market is.

Equally on the international side, we've tried to pass on a large part of the fuel increase, but not in its entirety we've been able to pass on the fuel charge. One is balancing out both in terms of what the fuel charge and the base price needs to be, along with the load factors that the revenue management teams are focus on.

The objective is to see how much of the cost can be recovered through these increased revenue, but we've not been able to completely offset the increased fuel environment that we are in. April was a tougher month, but what we've seen is at least for May, things are relatively better in terms of the load factors.

On the utilization side, yes, the utilization has been impacted because we had to cut a lot of our capacity going into the Middle East. Because of that, like was mentioned, close to 160 flights got impacted both for the Middle East as well as for Europe.

That was largely around 18% of our capacity. While we did try to redeploy most of our capacity into the domestic routes, given that this is a season largely for domestic, but we do see pressure on the utilization also, which is what is reflected in the overall growth that we're expecting for Q1 2027.

The mix tends to move around. On an average, it used to be 70 domestic, 30 used to be international.

Given Q1 is a more domestic-heavy kind of a play given the seasonality, the ratio is going to be more skewed on the higher side towards domestic and less on the international. Any which ways, international, largely the Middle East, is something that we are still in the ramp phase.

We are ramping back up again. The 160 flights that we had, especially with the war coming through, we had to cancel large part of that.

Today that capacity is probably back to two-thirds of what we were. Utilization is lower, more capacity being deployed towards the domestic, and ramp back up again in the Middle East, especially as we prepare for the Q2 season, which tends to be bigger on the Middle Eastern side than on the domestic side.

Thanks for that. Any rough number where are the utilization rates on international now?

Like domestic data we get, but just on international.

The catch with the utilization on a standalone basis is going to be... Or

load factor.

Yeah.

Load factor.

We're trying to optimize PRASK, like I said. The objective is to increase fares given the fuel environment that we are.

We're trying to increase that. They were low as I mentioned, especially with the crisis that was being faced, especially in March and then April.

May, things are improving right now. I can't give you a firm number in terms of load factors standalone for international.

Good evening, sir, and thank you for taking my question. You commented that there was a mid-teen growth in unit revenue in the first quarter.

That makes a fairly high number. Purely in qualitative terms, where do you think the demand is?

How elastic or inelastic it is, because a mid-teen number would be a very high PRASK/yield in 1Q. Do you think that's impacting or when does it start impacting the absolute demand?

When you look at PRASK, Arvind, you've got to remember what happened in Q1 of last year also, because we were severely impacted by the events that played out, especially in May. Till April, the quarter was was pretty strong.

We had the Pahalgam attack and then it followed, the May quarter last year, May month was extremely weak. That was the time when we were probably having a very low, both load factors as well as the the revenue environment.

When you do factor that into the into the base, this mid-teens increase is is something which which is which is seeming to be high, but on a base effect basis, it's not that significant. Couple that with also the fuel increases that have happened.

In a way, it's positive for us that the that the overall yields have gone up as well as the PRASK is going up, but the base effect is low, and the cost increases that we have in in the month of both April and May are significant.

All right. The impact on demand, if any?

May is coming out to be stronger. Again, with the base, April was soft because we were still in the ramp phase.

May is coming out to be positive. As a result, that's why you have the PRASK at mid-teens level, which is a combination of both the yields as well as the load factor.

The demand is good for the month of May.

Got it. Thanks.

My second question would be on fleet strategy. Yes, over the near term, the fleet tends to be a little less flexible, but are you taking any change in the delivery schedule given the demand or change in flights that you've undertaken?

We are looking at the capacity that we need to kind of put into production and operations. Our immediate attempt is to first kind of phase out the damp leases because those are the ones which was mentioned in the opening remarks also, tend to be more expensive, both in terms of the cost because there is a inherent kind of a markup that is there.

Plus, some of them are not the most latest technology. As a result, tend to consume a lot more fuel.

That's the first kind of a space that we are kind of addressing. We will return most of our damp leases, something similar that we had done last year also, given a softer Q2 that we envisioned within the cycles that we have.

Then we're also looking at some of our older technology fleets that we have, which is the CEOs. We'll look at it given the fuel environment that we are in.

These aircraft tend to consume a lot of fuel, we'll be looking at those. That's our approach right now.

There is no shift as far as deliveries are concerned related to order book, but our first attempt is going to be to address it both in a manner of returning the damp leases and then looking at if there are any kind of older technology aircraft that may not need to be utilized as much. Then we'll keep monitoring how the fuel environment works, because it's anyone's guess in terms of how long this particular situation in Middle East is going to last, and then what the tail effect of that is going to be.

We'll be a little more dynamic as far as our fleet planning is concerned.

Yes, hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

A two-part question on your CASK ex-fuel, ex-FX. In 4Q, if I look at the line items which comprise your ex-fuel costs, given the disruptions, given the currency depreciation, it seems that the cost inflation was quite well managed if I look at lines like employee, airport fees, and even the supplementary rentals.

Any mitigating factors that you have already deployed and any color on the cost management? The second part would be, like you have been giving guidance last year, any guidance for the CASK ex-fuel, ex-FX trends for the quarter or for the year, whatever you are comfortable providing?

You're right, we've kind of tried to manage the cost dimension, but large part of the cost will also have an underlying FX impact, which will start flowing through because what we absorbed in Q4 was the mark-to-market impact to begin with the rupee depreciated. Going forward, that will also start playing into the CASK ex-fuel, ex-forex.

Equally, the utilization aspects also that got discussed, because the longer this conflict continues and the lesser the deployment of our capacity is going to be, that also has a denominator effect because the ASKs are not going to be as much to defray the fixed costs related to that. While we've kind of seen a headwind CASK ex-fuel, ex-forex, we had guided it's going to be somewhere in the mid-single digit, at least for the coming quarters.

Depending on how things play out in terms of our utilization levels also, we foresee that it's going to be in mid to high single digits is what our anticipation is right now. Just bear with us because there's so much volatility right now across the environment that most of these kind of directional kind of views that we are sharing can change significantly, depending on how long this kind of continues.

We are making every measure that is there to see where we can tighten. Like I said, we're also kind of reducing fleet that is not the most efficiently.

We're looking at that spaces. Obviously, cost is a focus area always and even so more so in this particular environment for us.

Thanks for that. Just you had provided a sensitivity of ₹900 crores for every USD/INR depreciation.

Can you provide the latest sensitivity, or is this still the same?

Directionally, it's still the same. The good part is we had mentioned that we have started to do hedging to limit some of this exposure.

Our overall net exposure on dollar terms somewhere comes out to be around $10 billion. We've done a hedging of around $1.3 billion.

Give or take, we're still in that 900 trajectory right now for every rupee movement on the mark-to-market side. Anything on the balance sheet, we've got a $1 movement or ₹1 movement to a dollar tends to translate into ₹900 crores.

That's what you would have seen in the Q4 performance also. The impact of FX is somewhere around ₹4,800 crores.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

I have two. The first one is on the yield, going back to your comments on the mid-teens.

I just want to understand if you could please give a color in terms of how much of it is coming because of fuel surcharge and how much is the underlying increase in the fares, and because of that the yield is going. Can you please give a bit of color on that?

Achal, what I gave was a PRASK guidance of mid-teens, it has both the yields and the load factors. That's the balancing act that the teams are working.

It's more of PRASK guidance. A large part is obviously going to be fuel-related because the cost levels have anyways gone up.

While the mid-teens will look quite positive, but bear in mind the impact of fuel and the FX that we now need to absorb also is also equally significant, and that's why I mentioned that we're not able to absorb the entirety of the cost increases that are there. This is on the PRASK level.

We'll keep balancing between the yields and the load factors to try to optimize.

Right. The second question was on the cost side, one part of it is about the salary cost.

Because we thought you're going to hire more pilots because of new FDTL norms, and the salary cost could go up actually. We can see the Q4 salary cost is actually lower than Q3.

How is happening, and any plans on the fuel hedging, please?

On the fuel hedging, again, given the environment already the fuel has run up significantly, there's obviously thinking that is going around in terms of developing similar to what we've developed on the currency side, but it's in early stages given that the fuel has already run up significantly. We will be putting our minds to start looking at whether fuel hedging is another option, or given that we already have a significant fuel-efficient fleet that we already operate, as well as operationally to the extent we can minimize the fuel consumption, that's been the longest area of focus for us.

Given what we've experienced in the last 3 months now, that's going to be something that we'll probably start exploring. Not done yet, but something which is in its early kind of internal deliberations.

Yes, thanks for the opportunity. My first question was more from the perspective of the pricing strategy of the company.

Even in light of the fuel and the cost increase that is there, will the pricing be determined more by that or the extent of demand destruction that may end up happening? I think the underlying question somewhere is, do you want to establish certain price point and the way cost can be passed through independent of demand destruction, or will you be fairly sensitive to what the demand destruction can happen?

Aditya, allow me to take this question. This is Rahul.

For us, it is very clear that we need to take fares up to protect ourselves against sort of these additional costs that are showing up. For the moment, what we are discovering is that the fares are sticking.

The demand is there. You obviously have to take the pricing up to the point where you start to see elasticity come in.

For the moment, what we're seeing is as we take the fares up, the market is inelastic to these hikes in fares, and we'll just deal with this on a daily basis and see where we go.

Understood. The second question that I had was more on what you elaborated earlier on I think it was Gaurav, on the cash aspect and a fairly large cash position, and how it's going to be deployed.

There is a cost of aircraft ownership. Could you give us a sense of how much of that aircraft ownership cost can be mitigated over time as you use cash to good effect?

Aditya, if you were to think of cash which is sitting in the banks, you know what the returns on that is. It'll range between 6.5% to 7.5% depending which period you look at.

That's the kind of return you get on a cash which is sitting, versus an aircraft which has a lease rental value, which has a money cost which is much higher. There's a natural arbitrage that does exist for one to start deploying the cash to start owning the assets because there's always some money in terms of financers' cost that is involved in this.

The second dimension, which is also becoming even more meaningful, is the FX-related. The sooner you lock in an aircraft and own it, the exposure related to the FX also kind of gets mitigated to a large extent also.

These are two dimensions that come into play as far as aircraft ownership is concerned versus using cash or keeping cash within the banks. Now having said that, I did mention in my opening statement, given we are in an aviation industry, it's always prudent to keep at least 20% to 25% of your overall top line as a safety net.

That's been our stated strategy that we are sitting on a lot of cash, around 20% to 25%, which is roughly around ₹20,000 crores to ₹25,000 crores give or take, is going to be something we'll keep as a safety net. Anything above that, we'll start deploying towards acquisition of assets which otherwise would have a much higher money cost to pay than what we will get as returns on those from the banks or the mutual funds where we invest.

Thank you, sir. Those were my questions, sir.

Hi.

Pramod, can't hear you.

Yeah. I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Now we can.

Sorry. Sorry for that.

Just a clarification on the employee costs that one of my colleagues/peers did ask that question as to why the employee costs fell, just clarify that, that would be very helpful.

Sorry, what's the question, Pramod? I missed that, so.

The employee costs, Gaurav, the sequential decline in employee costs even with higher hiring and all that. Just what led to that decline on a quarter-to-quarter basis?

Okay. If you look at quarter-over-quarter sequentially, you're saying that there is some reversal that we've taken related to some accruals we were doing related to leadership payouts, which have been reversed out.

That's why you see a kind of a reduction on a sequential basis. Other than that, year-over-year, the cost would be growing in line with the normalized kind of inflation and increases that we have on the salary front.

Fair enough. Second question is on the corporate side, sir, because we've been hearing a lot of statements from companies publicly and privately that they are kind of tightening the belt on expenses, including travel.

Corporate travel have been business for industry and for us. If you can just throw any color on the travel, any

Sorry. Is it any better, sir?

Sorry, I'm or no? Or I'll come back in the queue.

Hello?

It was on the corporate travel, sir. Corporate travel, any changes you are seeing or moderation you're seeing on the corporate bookings?

No, like I said, May is coming relatively good. I've already given a bit of a guidance in terms of where we're looking at the PRASK/CASK.

We're not seeing any kind of a softness. I can't differentiate between corporate right now versus what is for leisure and purpose, but overall May is coming better.

April was soft, but May is coming stronger.

Fair enough, sir. Thanks a lot.

Best of luck. Thank you.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the international side of things.

Just wanted to get a sense around the long-haul for the rest of the year. I do understand there are certain restrictions at this point.

Would like to get a sense on whether we will continue to lease more wide-bodies and continue to cater to new destinations on the international side, the far-reach destinations?

This is Rahul again. When you talk about long-haul, what markets are you talking about?

For example, we started Manchester, Amsterdam, etc., something on those lines. Probably in the Far East or other geographies?

In this journey, we will continue to, on a daily basis, optimize the network to suit the current needs. What that will be tomorrow morning, we can't tell you, but the assurance we give you is that we continue to watch this very closely and to ensure that we are running an optimal operation.

Understood.

The second question is on the new domestic airports which are in key metros. Just wanted to get a sense around the incremental capacity deployment in domestic.

Do you see

Good evening. I have a couple of questions.

Firstly, you talked about ex-fuel, ex-forex guidance of mid to high single digit, or is it extremely volatile? Is it possible to give something on ASK growth for full year as well?

You talked about for first quarter at 3% to 4%.

Not yet, Prateek. You'll have to wait because we're not giving annual guidance right now.

We're just giving you for Q1. In due course, we'll also come up with that.

Sure. The other question is on FDTL situation.

Is this largely addressed now, or is there a pilot mismatch in terms of current situation? Of course, capacity is only lower right now, but overall from where in December industry was, is that situation eased in terms of availability and hiring?

Our readiness in terms of FDTL is complete and will remain like that into the future.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

First question, on the capacity management, while you alluded towards this, just curious to understand, given the constraints on the international routes, this capacity you mentioned has been deployed on the domestic market. One, if you can highlight whether these are more metro or the non-metro routes, and combining this with your earlier comment that the fuel price increase, at least in the domestic market, in the month of May give or take is largely done in terms of yield matching the increase in the ATF prices?

Your thoughts there, please.

Large part of the redeployment on the domestic side is going to be towards, A, the metros, especially the new airports that are coming up. You've got both Navi Mumbai as well as now Jewar starting shortly.

Going to be redeployment towards that. Plus a large part, at least in the first quarter, is going to be towards the leisure markets in India, because this being a seasonally big quarter for travel domestically, these are going to be towards leisure markets.

Sorry, I missed the second question that you had.

Sure. The second part there was your comment on domestic yields largely matching the ATF prices.

While on the international, maybe on a route-specific basis it may vary, but on the domestic side, it's largely matching as in the increase in ATF prices has been largely passed through.

Thanks to the fact that the increase on the fuel wasn't that big as we saw in the international side, because we did get support from the government as well as the oil marketing companies, where the increase was only 25% to 30% vis-a-vis international, which was at market, where the increase was more than 100%. That's why we've been able to manage that relatively better, keep our prices, especially for the domestic season, lower.

Otherwise, the price increase would have been even higher. In effect, it's a tag teaming because the airports also helped out in terms of their airport charges being deferred out.

Combination of both the oil marketing companies, the airports, the airlines all collectively working to make sure that the prices do not significantly increase for the consumer, especially in this period, which is Q1, which is big in domestic.

Good evening. Firstly, one clarification.

This PRASK guidance of mid-teens, this includes the fuel surcharge, or it excludes that?

It includes. It's all-in.

Would the all-in cost be for us also. It includes.

Okay. Now coming to the question, in terms of fuel prices, there has been a lot of development.

I think Delhi as well as Maharashtra, they have reduced the VAT also significantly on ATF. Do you see that it is probably the peak of the fuel pricing where we are right now, at least right now?

There has been no pass-on of the lower VAT or anything of that sort, right? Do you see fuel prices coming down hereon?

From April until now, not too much of clarity is there exactly on what is the real fuel prices for the airlines. Can you give some idea on that also?

Thank you.

Sabri, this is Rahul. This is work in progress.

We are working between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to come to an agreement into the future. As soon as we have clarity, we would let you know.

Thank you so much, and all the best.

Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my question is on our hedging policy.

If I'm not mistaken, our earlier policy was to hedge the cash flows falling due in the next 12 months. Now given the excessive volatility in rupee that we have seen of late, are we contemplating any change in strategy over here?

We are enhancing the policy that we had, and I'd mentioned this the last time also. Our initial going-in position to hedge was for the next 12 months, and we had a goal of hedging up to $1 billion.

Subsequently, we've increased that to $3 billion. We intend to hedge up to $3 billion.

Large part is going to be $1 billion towards the short-term cash flow hedges for the 12-month period, and the remainder of the $2 billion is going to be spread over the 2-year to 5-year period. We've kind of expanded and enhanced our policy.

As a result, today we are at 1.3, and we'll continue to keep scaling this up.

Sure. Sir, one last question from my side.

In the month of March, our international ASK was down by about 33% due to the Middle East crisis. I think some part of the capacity loss could have also come because we might have canceled some of the flights which probably are going through that route.

Now maybe the rerouting would have been in place. Just wanted to get some sense in April and May, how is our international capacity deployment shaping up?

Is the situation better off than March? If you can throw some color on that.

Yeah. Immediately, like was mentioned, we had close to 160 daily frequencies that we were running, went to the Middle East as well as into Europe.

Once the crisis happened, which was February 28, large part of this had to be canceled for obvious reasons because it was a high-risk zone. So 160 flights got canceled for couple of days.

After that, slowly we started to ramp up. We were in the 20s for large part of March that we were operating.

As things stand today, there's a high degree of normalcy that has started to come in into the Middle East. We've started operations.

Approximately two-thirds of that 160 that we had are now operating, and we intend to kind of scale back to full capacity by the end of June, which incidentally then rolls into a peak period which is for the Middle East in Q2. That's the way things have shaped up.

February, we had to cancel. Slowly we started to ramp up.

We're back to two-thirds, and then we intend to take full kind of a capacity by the end of June.

This is all subject to the risk assessment that we do both internally as well as with various partners that we have.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

Firstly, with William Walsh set to take over as CEO in August '26, could you comment on key strategic priorities that are being handed over? Given Mr.

Walsh's extensive experience with full-service global carriers, should we anticipate any further shift in IndiGo's hybrid model?

I guess this is Rahul. When you talk about what strategic responsibilities you're going to hand over to him, we're going to hand over the business to him.

He's going to be the CEO, and he'll run the shop in its entirety.

Given his experience running several shops with full-service global carriers, is there going to be a change in business strategy, or will it still be more hybrid-focused?

Let me answer that in two parts. What is very clear for IndiGo is the fact that our single-aisle program with the 320s and the 21s is going to be always central to the future of this company.

That's the very heart of this business. Now we're adding some mutation to it with the XLRs, with possibly the 350s into the future.

That will be a hybrid model, and it's something that Willie is well experienced with. He did that at Aer Lingus.

We'll continue to build that strategy of starting to create an international footprint while we completely, hermetically protect our short-haul business with our 320, 21 fleet.

Recently seen Air India take a much more aggressive stance on cutting capacity, slashing nearly 22% of the domestic flights and cutting deep into the international network to combat high ATF prices. Given that IndiGo's domestic curtailment is far milder and you're still inducting one plane per week, what is your stance on Air India's capacity cuts?

Are you looking at this as a tactical opportunity to aggressively capture their displaced passenger base?

We're not at liberty to answer questions on behalf of Air India. All I can say is that IndiGo, we will do what is right for us.

We will continue to watch this space and our capacity, and continue to optimize our operations on a daily basis.