No plans to cut air fares: SpiceJet

No plans to cut air fares: SpiceJet

Reuters

New Delhi, September 1:: Low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd said it does not plan to cut air fares even as jet fuel prices in the domestic market were slashed by 16 per cent from Monday.

Shares of SpiceJet, which has a tenth of India's domestic passenger market, rose more than 6 per cent to 29 rupees and were trading at 27.85 rupees at 12:06 p.m. while the benchmark BSE index was down 1.9 per cent.

SpiceJet's rival Deccan Aviation was up 5.2 per cent and Jet Airways was up 4.1 per cent.

"We need at least 2-3 months of stability of prices before we go back and revise. As of today, we are not doing anything," Partha Sarathi Basu said.

State-run Indian Oil Corp cut domestic jet fuel prices by 16 per cent with effect from Monday as international crude oil prices have fallen by a fifth from an all-time high of over $147 a barrel in mid-July.

Domestic jet fuel prices, among the most expensive globally due to high-level of taxes, constitute up to 45 per cent of an airline's operating costs and are more than 56 per cent up from September last year.

SpiceJet on Friday said it posted a 1.02 billion rupees loss for the April-June quarter hurt by high jet fuel prices.

Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said July-September would be the worst quarter in the financial year for all airlines due to low passenger traffic and high costs of operation.

"Airlines would do wise not to reduce the fares but continue to look at dynamic fare regime, which allows some bucket of lower fares in the market place," Kapil Kaul, CAPA's chief executive officer, Indian subcontinent and Middle East, said over the telephone.

SpiceJet's Basu said he expects the load factor, a measure of filling planes, which dropped to 61 per cent in August from 70 per cent a year ago, to pick up in the coming festival months of October and November.

"Next three months is the season for us. We expect the load to be back to 70 per cent," he said.


Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/