Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to IndiGo's conference call to discuss the third quarter of fiscal year 2023 financial results. My name is Aman, and I'll be your coordinator. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow today's management discussion. Just a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to your moderator, Ms. Richa Chhabra from the investor relations team of IndiGo. Thank you, over to you, ma'am.
Good evening, everyone, thank you for joining us for the third quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. We have with us our Chief Executive Officer, Pieter Elbers, our Chief Financial Officer, Gaurav Negi, and our Chief Programs Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Kiran Kumar Koteshwar, who are here 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 Pieter Elbers.
Thank you, Richa. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much for joining the call. We announced today our third quarter of the fiscal year 2023. It was a very strong quarter on the demand side, and IndiGo performed very well with improvement in operational, financial, and customer experience parameters. In November 2022, we were back being the most punctual airline in the country, and we retained the number one spot also in December of last year. As India's preferred airline, we welcomed a record number of 22.3 million customers during the December quarter. I'm very glad to report that we had the highest ever quarterly revenue of INR 154.1 billion and a robust quarterly profit of INR 14.1 billion for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023.
After various quarters, we are now back at meaningful levels of profitability as our profit margin shoots at 9.5%. I would like to sincerely congratulate all IndiGo employees for their superior performance and our customers for choosing IndiGo. The capacity development in December was 28.8 billion ASKs, which is 4% higher than the quarter ending of September 2022 and around 25% higher than the quarter ending in December 2021. The yields came in very strong at INR 5.38, the load factor also improved from around 80% in the December quarter to 85%... Sorry, 80% in the September quarter to around 85% in the December quarter.
On the cost front, our CASK decreased by 7% sequentially, primarily due to a reduction in the adverse impact of two important factors, the fuel and the ForEx. Gaurav will cover the cost trends in detail in his section. In the December quarter, we added 22 passenger aircraft as of deliveries to reach the 300 aircraft mark, a first for any airline in the country, giving wings to the nation and our ambition. It's indeed a great milestone in our journey, and we will continue to take further deliveries from our large order book of 500 aircraft. Apart from this, we also added one more freighter to help us to add to our cargo revenue. These additions will help us to expand our footprint both domestically and internationally.
On the domestic front, in line with our focus to increase accessibility in the Northeast part of the country, we added Itanagar as our 10th destination in the Northeast region. With Itanagar added, we now connect to all seven sister states of Northeast India. In January, we opened operations to the new Goa International Airport in Mopa as our 76th domestic destination. This was our largest new station launch ever and connects North Goa to eight cities across India to 168 weekly frequencies.
This opening is the largest by any airline to any destination in India and momentous for us as it signals towards our ambition and endeavor to provide connectivity, ease of accessibility, and provide even more options for our customers to one of the most visited tourist destinations of the country. Gradually, we'll also further explore international destinations from this airport. While domestically we serve a very significant share of our passengers, internationally we serve around 16% passengers in and out of India, leaving us with an enormous opportunity for further growth
In terms of mix and recovery, around 23% of our capacity measured in ASKs in the third quarter was deployed in international markets. We're already operating at 105% of our pre-COVID levels. With demand for international travel continuing to grow, we aim at expanding international connectivity further in the year 2023. One of the other developments is the addition of capacity between India and Europe through our codeshare agreement, which allows our customer to travel to 27 destinations like Amsterdam, Manchester, Milan, and Athens. We will continue to explore strategic partnerships in the future which will allow added connectivity for our customers and provide us with more global visibility.
The last one year has seen a continuous recovery, and we have reached greater heights and navigated across many new frontiers. The wide range of initiatives and actions which were set in motion over the past months have started to yield results. The demand remained strong, enable us to welcome a total of 76.8 million customers in the calendar year of 2022, and to reach a total of 1,700+ daily flights in the month of January. We are thankful for our customers for flying with us and thankful to our employees for the reliability of service delivered at such a large scale of operation.
Moving to the fourth quarter, the forward bookings look encouraging. Combined with relatively stable fuel prices, we hope to continue with this positive trend. We're looking forward to the next fiscal year with great enthusiasm, building on our ambitious expansion towards our endeavor to connect vast and diverse India and add to the overall social economic progress of the nation. Let me now hand over the call to Gaurav to discuss the financial performance further in detail.
Thank you, Pieter, and good evening, everyone. For the December 2022 quarter, we reported a strong quarterly net profit of INR 14.2 billion compared to a net loss of INR 15.8 billion for the quarter ended September 2022, and a net profit of INR 1.3 billion for the quarter ended December 2021. The year-to-date December 2022 operational profitability, which is excluding foreign exchange loss, stands at around INR 20 billion as against a loss of INR 41 billion for the year-to-date December 2021, which is indicative of a steady recovery from the pandemic. We reported an EBITDA of INR 3.0 billion with an EBITDA margin of around 23% compared to an EBITDA of INR 2.3 billion and an EBITDA margin of around 2% for the quarter ended September 2022.
This improvement in EBITDA was driven by a sizable increase in revenue and a reduction in adverse impact of fuel and foreign exchange. This is suggestive of relatively stable operating environment versus a couple of quarters ago. We saw a strong performance across several indicators in this seasonally strong quarter, with revenues improving by 20% compared to September quarter and 63% compared to quarter ended December 2021. The unit revenue came in at INR 5.26, which is 15% higher sequentially and 29% higher on a year-on-year basis. The fuel gap re-reduced by 11%, primarily due to reduction in average fuel prices by close to 7% as compared to September quarter. The average fuel prices are still higher by about 50% as compared to December 2021 quarter.
Looking at the non-fuel cost, there are sequential reduction in CASK ex-fuel by 4.3%, driven by lower foreign exchange loss. The rupee at closing date further depreciated by 1.4%, leading to a ForEx loss of INR 5.9 billion. Our CASK ex-fuel, ex-ForEx for December quarter stood at INR 2.55, an increase of 2.3% as compared to the September quarter. This increase was primarily due to restatement of salaries, additional expenses on certain initiatives and impact of global supply chain disruptions, which we are working to mitigate through alternate sources of capacity, including lease extensions and wet leasing. Our endeavor is to deploy adequate capacity during this strong period of recovery to minimize the adverse economic impact of such disruptions.
Liquidity remained strong during the period. We ended the December quarter with a Free Cash of INR 106.1 billion, a net increase of INR 23.6 billion as compared to the September quarter end. Our Free Cash on December 31, 2022 was INR 219.2 billion, a net increase of INR 22.6 billion. We ended this quarter with a Capitalized Operating Lease Liability of INR 410.4 billion and a total debt, including Capitalized Operating Lease Liability, of INR 444.8 billion. The increase of around INR 35 billion is driven by additions in aircraft, certain lease extensions and quarter-end foreign exchange changes that I spoke earlier. Our right of use assets at the quarter end was INR 254.8 billion.
Going into the fourth quarter, we expect to operate at around 45% higher capacity as compared to the same quarter last year. We will be concluding fiscal year 2023 at a higher side of the range of the previously guided capacity estimates. The bookings are strong through the fourth quarter with the effects of seasonality in yields. With this trend, we are expected to close fiscal year 2023 operationally profitable, excluding the impact of foreign exchange. We are currently building on our plan for the next fiscal year and finalizing our capacity. With the knowledge of today, we expect the capacity to grow around north of mid-teens in fiscal year 2024 as compared to fiscal year 2023. We will be giving more color on these aspects in the next earning call.
Our long-term prospects remain solid as we look forward to the next five to ten years of IndiGo's growth. We continue to remain focused on providing high quality product to our customers, increasing our productivity levels, and remain committed to generate healthy returns on capital. With this, let me hand it back to Richa.
Thank you, Pieter 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 are ready for the Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. Our operator will take your name and announce it on in the question queue. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, please wait for a moment while the questions are assembled. The first question is on the line of Binay Singh from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi team. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations to Gaurav and the team, a phenomenal set of earnings. My question is on capacity. Earlier we also had news coming out in regard to capacity. In the conference call also you referred to managing leases. Is it possible to comment a little bit about?
Your voice is not very clear. Sorry to interrupt you. Please use the hand.
Yeah. Is that better?
I think so. May I request you to come in a little clearer, please? Binay, would you like to join back in the queue? In the meanwhile, we move to our next question. Yes. We will take the next question that is from the line of Deepika Mundra from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, sir, and congratulations on a great quarter. A couple of questions from me. Your guidance of 15% odd capacity growth next year, could you put that in the context of the grounded aircraft situation and availability of spare engines, as well as in terms of what the situation like in terms of getting new deliveries, from Airbus in light of their recent miss on deliveries?
Yeah. We have demonstrated. Let me take a bit of time to answer your question and look back first to what we have been doing this year. At the start of this year, we've indicated capacity guidance, I believe between 13 and 17%. Despite the challenging situation on the supply chain, with a range of mitigation actions, we've been able to maintain the high end of our capacity guidance. As Gaurav just alluded, for next year, we have a capacity guidance somewhere around the north of the mid-teens. That's, that's our guidance for next year. We still have flexibility in adjusting that going forward, depending on demand situation and depending on AOG situation. We do expect the deliveries of Airbus to resume in the next year.
We are working to get the alternatives on capacity as we have been doing for the past two quarters. With that, we are confident that the capacity guidance which we were just giving, north of the mid-teens for full year can be achieved.
Understood. If you could give us, as to what percentage of the aircraft is currently grounded, if at all?
Well, we're not going into a specific number. There's also some fluctuations on that. The number, I must say, compared to the last earnings call we had is pretty stable, and we work closely with the suppliers to increase the supply chain. As I said, we have various actions. One of them is extending some of the leases. You may have seen in the news we have also yesterday or the day before yesterday, started a wet lease operation to Istanbul in order to provide us that capacity.
Last question from me. Is there any, in the results, any co- impact of holding cost of these grounded aircraft? Is it adequately being compensated by the OEMs?
There is. Because of the AOG there is an impact, we are working with the OEMs to get some relief related to that. Some of it did come through in the quarter results, which kind of offset that. We continue to keep working with the OEMs to the remainder of the AOGs that we have to get adequately compensated.
Understood. Thank you so much. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Joseph George from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, and pardon me for the background noise. I'm on the road. I have two questions. One is, if it was simple math, which is, you know, your revenues for the quarter, minus the passenger related revenues minusing ancillary revenues, I get a component with like some, you know, other revenues, which in the past for some quarters has been about INR 1 billion, you know, or INR 100 crores. This quarter it's jumped to about INR 350 crores, which is INR 3.5 billion. If you can, help us understand why there's a big jump of about INR 2.5 billion, this quarter. That's one. The second question is in relation to the aircraft utilization when you look at it in terms of number of hours per day.
This was not 12 and a half to 14 hours per day pre-COVID. now I understand that it's 10 to 11 hours per day. what is the outlook on that number? When can we get back to the twelve and a half to 13 hours per day number? Thank you.
If you look at the other category, obviously it has multiple elements to it. Some of it is related to other revenue streams like value add funding that we have related to the RCF portfolio and the flights that we take. Aside from that, we do get some OEM related credits that we spoke about, which are some of it is related to AOGs and some are related to delays which we've received in the quarter. Again, these are relatively small given the grand numbers of revenues overall that you see, which is closer to INR 15 billion. That's what this makes up.
Related to the utilization that we have, excluding the groundings, our utilization levels have been closer to 13 hours that we had targeted, and we are quite comfortable with those 13 hours. I think the team's done a fabulous job of reaching to those levels to mitigate some of the AOG impacts that we have experienced in the quarter.
From the OEM project, is that contained to the loss of flying hours this quarter, or is there any element of past quarters as well? Thank you. That was the last question.
It's a combination of both, I would say, we are not getting specifically into details related to that. We continue to work with the OEMs, as I said at the beginning, to effectively get compensated, that's where we can probably leave the response at.
No problem. Thank you. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mihir Shah from the Reliance Securities. Please go ahead.
For giving opportunity and congratulations for a very strong performance. First question, I would like to understand this consumer behavior after sharp increase back to back, airfare, particularly from the Tier 2 and T ier 3 cities. How has been the traffic in last one or two quarter, and what is the outlook there?
If you look to the network of IndiGo, today we operate to 76 domestic destinations. Actually, as recent as today, we announced two new destinations to be added in the month of March. Nashik and Dharamshala will be added to our network. A very significant part of our network is the non-metros. We have, of course, a very strong position at the metros, but given the size of our network, naturally a significant share of our ASKs is also operated in the Tier 2 and T ier 3 cities. If you run a network at 85% load factor for the entire quarter with very strong base, but also low, less strong base, it means that basically also the Tier 2 and T ier 3 cities are doing very well.
Actually, we see that providing air connectivity to these cities is creating really a positive economic effect and sort of add-on effect, where there's more economic activity. With more economic activity, there's more flying. It was a self-supporting system in order to create that air connectivity to Tier 2 and T ier 3 cities.
Thank you for detailed answer. Second question, again, on this ATF prices being still volatile. Any thought on short to medium-term hedging or anything we are doing on this price? What's the situation in this January and February beginning compared to last quarter's average in terms of pricing?
We are not looking at ATF hedging to begin with. Obviously the change, the big shift that happened last quarter, where we had the oil marketing company shift to the MOPAG pricing. That gave us some favorability in terms of transparency, as well as the price plan that was agreed on the tracking cost also gave some favorability to all the airlines. That's been a positive development for us. The new regime that has been now put in place, we saw some reduction related to ATF with the prices coming down from MOPAG, which translated into relative savings for the airlines in quarter three. We are seeing a similar trend. It's obviously going to be linked to the way the price is going to behave, which is then going to translate into the MOPAG index getting influenced.
Other than that, we continue to push our operations to optimize fuel saving opportunities, which we've been doing traditionally also, and we continue to push that. Related to hedging, we are not looking at ATF as a, to be hedged, in any time soon.
Thanks, sir. Lastly, on this international capacity, as we are indicating 8%+ growth for FY 2024, I believe 70% would be for these new destinations on the international side. Can you give broader indication on how much it would be?
We are now fine-tuning our precise network plans going forward. As I said, we have a total growth plan for next year in the north of the mid-teens. The recent international expansions which we have done, basically are performing very well. We're optimistic going forward. We have identified a list of destinations such as in Nairobi and Jakarta, which are on the list to be open somewhere in the year to come. We have recently seen opening of China as a market, we are optimistic going forward. Beside our own expansion, part of the expansion we have done now as a European codeshares, which I mentioned in my introduction, are also helping us a lot to get a larger international footprint.
That goes basically hand in hand, if I may add there, that goes hand in hand with the also the development of the Indian economy with a much more international connectivity, investments, and positioning. That's, I think it nicely coincides, and it's not by coincidence, but by design of really shaping that international content.
Thanks, sir. Thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Achal Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and wonderful set of numbers. Quickly, a couple of things actually. First, I think you just said that you are still sorting out the international network. In terms of strategies, are you going to operate the wide bodies? Are you going to operate narrow bodies? If you are going to operate the wide bodies, are you offering business class, two class or three class seats? What's, what would be the strategy on the international side? As of now, you just announced Istanbul operating these 777s . What's, what's your plan? Is there a sort of a special kind of agreement with Turkish that you'll be operating 777s to Istanbul?
In fact, you are going to use 777s for the broader international network? That is the first question. Secondly, also I wanted to understand about the competitive landscape now, of course, being more clarity on how the price could change its structure. It looks like there are three core airlines. 1 is LCC, AirAsia, and Air India Express, and then one full service. What kind of risks do you see from that? Finally, about your liquidity. You have very strong liquidity at the moment. Do you have any specific plans on how you use that money? Do you have anything in mind? Thanks.
Thank you. I'll answer your first two questions, and then I'll ask Gaurav to go into further details on the liquidity. Let me start with the first one on the strategy. I shared that with you last time. The strategy for IndiGo, in fact, has three main components. The first one is coming back to what I call the very basic success of our company, which is you see it back, for example, in the on-time performance. The very three customer promises we're having, hassle-free and courtesy service, on-time performance, and affordable fares, will remain very much so the basics and the core of our strategy. That's one. I think again, you see it back in the on-time performance where I'm very proud of what the teams did, really wonderful.
We are back to the number one position in India with the size of our operation, which is just a very impressive result by the teams. The second one the second part of that strategy is that we develop and align our structure in line with the size of our company. We start to invest there in further digital tools and further internal processes and make sure that we can continue that growth path. The third pillar is to create a future. Basically work towards the next phase. Part of that next phase is indeed a more international exposure, and we started to do that with today's 26 destinations, but also to continue to will the work on our customer loyalty and elements linked to what we are.
Your specific question on the wide-body, maybe it's good to remind that this was one of the measures which was taken in order to deal with the supply chain issues. We are having a long-standing partnership and relationship with Turkish. It's one of the first, if not the first airline partners of IndiGo. We operated to Istanbul already. We already had a beyond codeshares, and we found a good way to deal with our supply chain issues in temporarily leasing these wide-bodies from Turkish. That's today's situation. In summary, the basis of the company is still very strong, and the very foundations of what we did for the past 16 years, we continue to do that. On that, we start to build our international footprint and our international exposure.
I think the results today, be it on the revenue side, be it on the financial performance side, just speak to the actions we have taken over the past period in order to relaunch that very strong foundations of the company. There's no change in that in that strategy. Again, we're adding the wide bodies to deal with the supply chain. Partnerships, last but not least, are an important part of that strategy. The fact that we have the beyond codeshares now allow our customers to connect over Istanbul and have the last piece of their journey in Europe. The longest part of their journey is with us, and then the last bit of their journey is with our partners, TP Airline.
As such, it provides us a footprint in Europe, it provides us awareness in Europe, and it also gives us an opportunity to get more non-Indian customers to India. That basically is the very core of our strategy going forward. I'll ask Gaurav to do the liquidity question.
Again, on the liquidity side.
After a long kind of a time, we've got close to INR 22,000 crore. Again, I want to break it down while there is INR 22,000 crore of cash available. A large part of that is a restricted cash related to our obligations for maintenance. Now we've got a reasonable amount of Free Cash which is available, which is roughly around INR 10,000 crore. Like I mentioned in my opening remarks, we are currently doing the planning for the next year. What this cash does is give us the leverage to now start thinking about areas where we want to invest, areas where we want to invest from a growth standpoint, even as mentioned related to digitization, our investment into systems and tools in order to drive productivity within the organization.
There are many more areas that we are evaluating currently, which we'll come back to you. Being in a much improved liquidity position gives us now the leverage to start exploring those growth investment opportunities.
Okay. Could you share your thoughts on entities?
Yeah. Sorry, I realized I omitted answering that question. So, you mentioned the initiatives which are taken by Tatas. I would say in general, I would like to focus on the IndiGo performance and the IndiGo results. Having said that, the fact that there's some consolidation in the Indian aviation landscape, the fact that Air India or the Tatas are taking initiatives, I think by and large for the Indian aviation market, it's a good thing. It will further mature, it will further develop, which eventually is a good thing for the market and for all the players in that market.
Having said that, for us at IndiGo, we continue to focus on basically what has been the success of our company in the past, in the past 16 years, as I mentioned before, to make sure that we deliver our customer promise, the one which I just mentioned to you, in combination where cost leadership remains a very essence of our profitability going forward. Overall, market is developing solid. Competition is there, but it's there in a different way maybe than it's what is in the past. We focus on our own strengths, and with that, we should be ready to deal with the competition.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Gopalan S. from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the yield side. Just wanted to get a sense as to how are the yields moving in January and February, and what do you foresee with respect to the yields? I know this is not a strong quarter, vis-à-vis third quarter. I just wanted to get a sense on that.
Again, the yields have stopped compared to the third quarter, but that's largely because of seasonality. The good thing is that the yields are still holding up much higher than what they used to be pre-COVID levels. That's a positive kind of indication. They kind of moderated down, in line with the seasonality that we expected for Q4 compared to Q3.
Thank you. My second question was on cargo operations. I just wanted to understand what are our aspirations here? Is there any growth target that we have in mind? Is there any other further fleet additions which one can expect more in the medium term?
I think overall, we started the cargo operation last year. That was, I would say a bit, a start which we were long awaited, finally we got the cargo freighter coming in last year, we started the first flights both domestic and international. We have recently received our second freighter. On the short term, we have no other plans for that. We're now in the process of optimizing our planning on that, working around our procedures, making sure that we have a good sort of linkage of our enormous domestic network with the operation of these two freighters. I would say it's work in progress. It's an important part, it's supplementing the total business of IndiGo.
Oh, thank you. Last question, if I may. I just wanted to understand a little bit on the international side. While I do understand, I do note that international is close to about 107% of pre-COVID levels, but we are seeing that certain geographies, especially in the Southeast Asia, are well below average. Given that capacity constraints over the medium term with respect to OEs as well as the capacity challenges, are you expecting more and more capacity deployed on geographies which are just opening up, or if and if at all, you know, there is a higher traction, can international capacity expansion gain the preference over the domestic side of things, which is more a function of new output addition perhaps?
No. Let me, I think, shed a bit of light on that. Today, domestic is the, as we shared in the numbers, is the vast majority of our operation. That will continue to be the case going forward. Having said that, our growth on international will be higher than our growth on domestic. I'm not sure if I understood your remark on Southeast Asia with the somewhat lower numbers. I think what we see is that the international markets are recovering, by the way they are opening with post-COVID measures. You may have seen some interruptions. We know that China is only very recently opening, even Southeast Asia is not so long open.
The recovery of these markets has been more driven by the fact that some of these markets opened quicker or let some of the COVID measures go quicker or less quick rather than by a change of demand. We remain very optimistic, and I guess the geographical position of India and the fact that we operate, both from the north part of India as well as from the south part of India, gives us a great opportunity to have very different international connections. What we see, what we operate out of Delhi is very different than what we operate out of Hyderabad. If you see the position of IndiGo, I think we have a unique opportunity and a unique position really to develop our international network in basically all directions, matching it and linking it to the Indian metros we operate out of.
Well, thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chirag Shah from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Good evening, congratulations on good set of numbers. I have few questions. The first one relates to the overall Indian passenger traffic demand. We had last few years affected by COVID. Do you see more pent-up and more sort of catching up happening this calendar year also? Do you think that the passenger traffic demand growth could go more to the ballpark run rate of two times or something just of rate of real GDP growth?
You said you had multiple questions. This is your question.
Yeah, this is the first one. Yeah. This is the first one.
Oh, okay. No, I think you address a very valid point, actually both points you're addressing. If you look to the total recovery of the Indian market, the total numbers of the market are not yet back to the pre-COVID levels. IndiGo is at this point in time, higher than pre-COVID levels. We can expect going forward that the market will continue to grow significantly in order to catch up, and some pent-up demand will be there also in the year to come. That's why we're optimistic on that outlook. You combine that with, and you mentioned that yourself, the ballpark number of aviation growth, especially in a market which is still growing a lot for aviation of 2 times the GDP size.
If you take the GDP outlook, and you combine that with the earlier remark of still some pent-up demand, that's how also we come to comfortably giving a capacity guidance of north of the mid-teens for years to come.
Okay. Okay. Second question is related to your fleet addition. Historically, your net fleet addition has been like quite robust. Just last year has been affected by issues. I think Q3 again, you were able to catch up and something like 25, 30 sort of run rate is showing for this year. This run rate will continue, considering that you have an order book of 500, where in down the line, would you have to, like, place another set of orders to maintain your maintain your expansion?
Well, we have seen indeed, that's part of the success of IndiGo. I mentioned earlier, we crossed in January. For the first time, I think, in India, an airline operates more than 300 aircraft, and we're proud, for all of us at IndiGo that we had that benchmark. It's not only a very big number, but it's also a young fleet, and we recognize this, having the youngest fleet for an airline with more than 100 aircraft. Which of course helps to our fuel consumption, it helps to our CO2 emissions, it helps to our sustainability effect. That foundation and that basis is very strong. We will continue to build at the similar number as we have done over the past few years.
Our fleet for 2024, or actually for the full year 2024 to come, or the calendar year 2023, we will have to see what's gonna be the precise number. Of course, that depends on Airbus and the deliveries, we foresee a similar rate of increase which we have seen over the past years. If you don't mind, I won't give any speculations going forward on new orders. With an order book of 500, I think we're good for the time to come.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pulkit Patni from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Sir, my question is in yield. Any indicative sense of how much have yield compressed based on the first one month of data on a QOQ basis?
We can't give you specific view. We don't have enough data to reflect while one month has gone by. What you can do is do an extrapolation with the historical trends, the way they move from a Q3 to a Q4. That will give you an indication.
Yeah. Historical has been about 3 odd %, but this time around region article, it seems to be a higher number. If I take slightly on the higher side, that's my view, which I give to you. Fair point. My second question is, given that we have cash now, could we think of buying planes versus leasing in the near term, given that we are in an elevated interest rate environment, and in which case the leasing cost of whatever you would be thinking now would be coming at a higher cost. Is that fair to assume?
One should do the other one. Nothing is off the table. I'll just say that, Pulkit, because, again, buying an aircraft is kind of a long-term commitment of your cash also. We are looking at other avenues because we tend to remain asset light for the time being. Nothing is off the table. As we go through our planning cycle for the next year, we'll evaluate all this. Like I said, we do have that leverage now to play with various options given the Free Cash that is available with us.
Understood, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Mongia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a very strong set of results to all of you. The first question that I had was on this interplay between domestic and international. When you said you are unique because of international, I'm just trying to think through that the fact that you have so many domestic destinations, how do you think about the D2I and I2I prospects that can come forward for an airline like IndiGo?
I think, and that's maybe surprising for some, the today's network of 76 and soon 78 domestic destinations, they already do connect to our international network. Already today we do have a set of connections and a set of connectivity in place in our network. Of course, we continue to go forward. Some of that connectivity is by design, and some of that connectivity is just by consumers finding out different travel plots and different routes. In the domestic space, we operate some 400 direct city pairs. Many of these flights indeed are connecting to international. We continue the development of both our domestic and international network. We continue to develop that D2I and I2D as you as you just questioned for.
Just a clarification, is I2I actually possible? I'm just trying to kind of suggest that for you as an airline was looking at China as a large market just in COVID and obviously it didn't justify as well the proof of there. Is that even a possibility over a three to five-year perspective that international passengers land in India or combine domestic passengers and go out on international flights?
That's already the case, today, sir. Today it's in relatively small numbers, so, already today passengers can connect. With the growth of our network and of course we need to have the bilaterals in place, and we need to make sure that we have all the facilities in place to do that. I mentioned before, I think the geographical position of India and the geographical position of our strong points in India are perfectly allowing us to further develop that connectivity, be it in Delhi, be it in Mumbai, also be it in Hyderabad and other places where we do operate. That international connectivity is there and will continue to be developed going forward.
Thank you.
Maybe just to add here. You were very kind in appreciating the results, and of course that's a mixture of all actions we are doing, and enhanced connectivity is just one of them. It's basically many of the initiatives we are taking are nicely coming together and supporting these results. Connectivity is really one of them.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Pramod Kumar from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot for the opportunity. Congratulations on a great operation number. Our question is on the international side, given that it's becoming increasingly large and the big focus of growth going forward, will you be in a position to share the broadly the revenue split of the even of the operating metrics if you can in domestic and international?
Well, I think what we have shared with you was some of the the share of ASKs we're having. That share number which I just mentioned was 23%. That share will go up somewhat going forward. We're not providing any sort of revenue breakdown per area, but the the the capacity share of ASKs, which is today around 23%, will move towards the direction of 30% in the year to come.
Historically, there has been always a perception that international has better profitability. Given the fact that yields in India have also surged in the recent quarters and low fares have also increased. How should one look at the profitability equation between domestic and international operations going forward?
I think if we look have a closer look at your question, I think the fact that we are getting a different combination of domestic and international, it's a way also for us to be more agile and to spread. If the domestic international is strong, we can shift a bit more to that. If the domestic is strong, we can shift a bit more to that. The combination, of course, creates that D and I and I2B connectivity we were just speaking about. The philosophy of having that network and having the opportunity to tilt a bit more to one leg or the other leg, I think that will basically put IndiGo, if I may phrase it like that, more firmly on two feet, going forward.
Final question on the domestic of new locations where we can add differently at around 75, 76. How about where do you see this number in the next two, three, two years let's say, given that new airports are also being opened up? Because these smaller cities and towns are actually bringing in pretty good traffic and also are pretty viable. How should what will be the target you will have in mind, say two years out on the number of domestic destinations, where you will operate?
You know, a number of destinations is never a target in itself. We operate where there's a market, where airports are opening, where we feel it makes sense for our customers to move forward. Again, we just announced 2 new ones, earlier today, to Nashik and Dharamshala, if I pronounce it correct. That's number 77 and number 78. With more airports opening and a wide range of initiatives from both government as well as private entities to move forward on that. We will continue to provide that airlift. Again, if you see where India stands and the development of the economy and also the development of some of the regional economies, that is just speaking to what aviation brings.
A number of a, I would say high single-digit growth of destinations per year, we should be able to do that. Again, it's not, it's not an objective in itself. Maybe it's an outcome of airports going in operation and market developments.
Thanks a lot. I wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Shah from Centrum Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions, largely on the operating cost side. One, in terms of the employee cost that we are seeing discounted per unit basis, is this the normalized levels or there is still some impact on salary normalization that could be expected in the quarters to come? Maybe I'll just complete the second question as well. I'll just complete the second question, sorry. The other one being on the Supplemental Rent and maintenance costs. That number is a little elevated today, probably also because of the aircraft groundings. What is the kind of savings that one could expect in terms of the unit costs on that particular subject as we go forward into the next year and hopefully when things normalize? Those are the two questions. Thank you.
On the first part, the salary, obviously we did the retraction related to all our employees in the quarter. This is now going to be more level loaded and a levelized kind of a salary per unit or ASK cost that you'll start seeing, subject to obviously investments that we are planning to do for growth, where we will probably have some deployment of further resources. You can assume it to be a more levelized cost going forward on a quarter-to-quarter basis. Related to FR, again, the Supplementary Rentals, this is where you'll see on a unit cost basis, we are somewhere around INR 0.70 per ASK. This is where we will remain. Obviously there's a lot of moving parts related to AOGs which can impact this.
On a levelized basis, 70 paise per ASK is where we are today, and we've been there for a couple of quarters is where we see ourselves.
Sure. Thank you. That helps. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir. My question is on grounding of aircraft for yourself and peers, is it significant? When do you expect the aircraft coming back in operation? Has it benefited particularly the yields in the past 6 months? My second question is on international operations. Where you have highlighted on this, from 23%, when you see that number going to 40%, does that tie up with your order of XLRs over the next 3 years? Thank you.
Let me do your first question on the AOG situation and the, when do we expect them to get back into service. It all depends when the supply chain will be able to provide us all the things we need. There are some different reports out there. We're in close contact, of course, with the OEMs, and we hope that the situation will improve in the course of the year to come. Again, I think here we depend really on the OEMs and the supply chain facilitation on that part. Your second question, did it help you push on the yields? I wouldn't say so. With the OEMs, of course, we discussed to get the aircraft back.
I told you we have, we've taken a lot of measures such as lease extensions to more or less operate what we had planned for. Therefore, we could maintain our capacity guidance despite the situation. We have not adjusted our early capacity guidance. With that, I wouldn't link that to any sort of rise in yields. Your last point to international, I mentioned, you mentioned 40%. It's not the number which I mentioned for next year. I said today we are 23%. Next year we are going in the direction of 30%. Not sure what's the precise percentage where we will end. We just, we sort of see it from there, what would be the next step in going forward, depending on bilaterals, depending on further market development.
Of course, after that, the XLRs will help us to increase our range from the various Indian cities and with that, further develop our network.
Thank you. Just a related question on fleet. Is there any outlook on retirement of pending A320ceo fleet for the company?
Can you repeat the question please? Sorry.
Retirement for the pending A320ceo fleet, for the company.
Well, we take, of course, a very prudent approach. Again, we have had still some A320ceos in operation. One of the measures which we mentioned earlier to deal with the AOG situation is to continue some of that, these aircraft in operation. We will do that again, to mitigate the AOG. When that situation is more stable and will be better because of the supply chain, then we can have a different view and a different look at it.
Thank you. I'll get it. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is a follow-up question from the line of Amit Monga from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Sure. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is just about the comments made from your side that versus pre-COVID times, the yields are sticking out to be better than where they were on a pre-COVID basis. I'm assuming adjusting all the costs that's in that comment. Given this is a Duopoly market, do you expect this scenario to sustain for much longer? Given this, like, Duopoly-based market, do you think that versus pre-COVID, the yields and the stick costs are now going to be in a different zone for some time?
I think there's different elements which comes into play. One is some pent-up demand which is coming back, and that's coming back all over the world, and we should not look at yields in isolation for the situation in India. We should also look what's happening in other places in the world, we can see a very similar trend. One is the pent-up demand. The other part is there's inflation basically in many sectors, that inflation, of course, is also a part of some of the yield development. Last but not least, is of course the seasonal elements in that. The third quarter, of course, traditionally is a very strong season. Part of that robust yield development is, of course, driven by the seasonal effects we're having.
Understood. The second question that I had was just to kind of pick your brain further on this. India as a market, for domestic traffic and international traffic has grown at 2x GDP and 1x GDP almost for decades now. Do you anticipate these numbers changing over time?
Yeah. No, I'm six months now in India and what I witness here in terms of GDP growth, in terms of market growth, and in terms of a willingness to travel, that is a reflection what we see in the numbers here. Looking at some of the economic reports and economic projections going forward, I think we do expect, and that's of course, in our plans as well, we do expect to further develop that. Not only from the Tier 1 cities, but also from the Tier 2 cities. That really connects also to our network strategy. The combination of a young population and ambitious growth plans, some of the government plans in place, such as the development of airports, some of these policies in place are really helping and stimulating the economy at large.
For us as an airline, we're part of that economic development.
Got that. Those are my questions. Thanks a lot for your answers. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Pieter Elbers for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in this call. Maybe a few closing words that the third quarter for us was obviously a very strong quarter, both operationally and financially in the backdrop of this robust demand for air travel. We were very pleased to see that this wide range of initiatives that were set in motion across the organization have started to yield results. With that, the highest ever quarterly revenue, I think it speaks to the commitment of the IndiGo teams and the trust and the loyalty of our customers. With that, I'm very thankful to our customers and all IndiGo employees who enabled us to achieve this performance. The robust profit obviously is important, especially after this range of quarters due to COVID, which were much lower.
This really enables us to start rebuilding our company and start investing in the future. Gaurav mentioned a few elements like investing in digitization, investing in a lot of these elements. Profits are needed again, both to rebuild as well as to invest in the future. With that, this quarter has been a very important milestone for that. Thank you for that, and we'll be pleased going forward to continue to serve the market with further capacity growth across domestic and the international routes. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of IndiGo, that concludes the conference call. Thank you all for joining us, and you may disconnect now.