New Delhi: No-frill carrier SpiceJet Ltd on Wednesday reported its highest ever quarterly loss of Rs 807 crore in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2020 against a profit of Rs 56 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.
The airline said FY2020 post multiple unprecedented challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX which led to the overnight grounding of SpiceJet's MAX fleet.
"On the grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, the company continues to incur various costs with respect to these aircraft and during this quarter ended March 30, 2020 on account of its inability to undertake revenue operations, the company has recognised INR 134.5 crore towards aircraft and supplemental lease rentals and other identified expenses as Other Income for the reported quarter," the airline stated.
The airline reported a net loss of Rs 934.8 crore in FY20 that includes a non-cash loss of Rs 697 crore due to forex loss on the restatement of lease liability due to Ind-AS 116.
During the quarter, Spicejet said that it added 38 aircraft to its fleet. The airline operated 570 average daily passenger flights before Covid-19.
Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet, said, "Two key factors that adversely impacted our performance and bottom line was the Covid-19 pandemic that started affecting demand adversely from mid-February and grounding of the 737 MAX, which has been out of service for over a year now. Despite the year-long grounding of the MAX aircraft, SpiceJet ran a profitable operation till Covid hit demand from mid-February."
"Indian and the global aviation industry are going through the toughest-ever phase in aviation history. We at SpiceJet have constantly adapted to the changing economic environment and I am happy that our cargo operations have performed very well. I am confident that things will only improve in the times to come. We remain cautious but optimistic about the future," he added.
