IndiGo Owner to Sell $450 Million in Shares to Cut Stake

A woman found the missing Chihuahua, who was lost for three weeks after being separated from her owner at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, on Saturday.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration expects the number of travelers passing through airport checkpoints to beat, if only slightly, the record of 262 million set four years ago.

Southwest Airlines has put an initial number to the losses incurred during its holiday meltdown: a $725-825 million hit to its pre-tax income in the fourth quarter. That number includes both $400-425 million in lost revenue and added costs, for example reimbursing people for alternative travel costs.

Steven Udvar-Házy, the co-founder and executive chairman of lessor Air Lease Corporation, believes the airline industry will likely see more consolidation, especially in Europe. Udvar-Házy said at the recent Skift Aviation Forum in Dallas that while he doubts the continent’s low-cost carriers will be involved in any mergers, he sees Italy’s ITA and TAP Air Portugal as takeover targets.  

Bain Capital said on Monday it is looking to relist airline Virgin Australia, in a move that would come as the domestic aviation market bounces back strongly from pandemic lows.

United Airlines took a nearly 10 percent stake in its regional partner Mesa Air Group in a deal unveiled after markets closed. The transaction is worth an estimated $10.5 million based on the closing price of Mesa’s stock of $2.61 per share on Monday.

Two tech startups involved in the travel industry raised $15.3 million this week.

Indian carriers have occupied a lion’s share of international air traffic, which is more than pre-Covid times, as per data released by India’s aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). This is testament to the fact that India could rank among the top three markets for outbound travel in the coming years. Leading this expansion in market share in low-cost carrier Indigo. Passengers carried on international flights operated by Indian carriers accounted for 43.5 percent of total overseas travel in the fourth quarter of 2022, up from 39.2 percent in the corresponding period of 2019. In 2020, during the same period, the market share of Indian carriers rose to 65.3 percent, and in 2021, the share of Indian carriers in the total international passenger traffic stands at 49.6 percent. Out of the 30 Indian cities from where international passengers embark/disembark, five Indian cities accounted for approximately 70.2 percent of international passenger traffic. Delhi tops the position in the category with a share of 28.3 percent, followed by Mumbai at 19.8 percent share and Chennai at 8.5 percent share). 

Indian companies have failed to set targets to reduce corporate travel emissions, according to an annual report by campaign group Transport & Environment. Globally, only 50 companies out of 322 have set targets to reduce business travel, with information technology (IT) services company Wipro paving the way in India. Wipro has achieved a 15-20 percent reduction in air travel emissions between the 2015 and 2020 period. Among all 10 Indian companies featured in the ranking report, only IT services provider Tech Mahindra reports on air travel emissions specifically. “Advancements taking place in India are mostly being led by the technology industry. We invite these technology companies to continue to work on their travel policies and demonstrate leadership to catalyze change in other industries,” said Denise Auclair, corporate travel manager at Transport & Environment. Of the companies that have targets, only four companies meet the “gold standard” of reporting air travel emissions and commitment to reducing them by 50 percent or more, by 2025 or sooner. These are Novo Nordisk (pharmaceuticals, Denmark), Swiss Re (finance, Switzerland), Fidelity International (finance, Britain) and ABN Amro (finance, the Netherlands).

Travel technology company Travelport revealed on Friday it had received a $200 million investment from its owners, Siris Capital Group and Elliott Management. Based in Langley, UK, the privately held company didn’t disclose its financial performance other than to say it had achieved “a strong first-quarter performance.”

Travel exchange company EbixCash — the Indian arm of insurance software company Ebix — has been granted regulatory approval for its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO). The IPO is expected to raise between $732 million to $975 million, making it one of the largest IPOs in the financial services sector in India. The company has already filed a draft red herring prospectus, but the IPO is still subject to the necessary approvals, market conditions, and other factors. In the run-up to the anticipated IPO, EbixCash had filed its prospectus with the Indian stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on March 10, 2022 after CEO Robin Raina declared on the company’s quarterly earnings call that EbixCash would file its prospectus “imminently.” Ebix declared its intent to raise $787 million via the IPO, while retaining a significant majority stake in EbixCash. While EbixCash operates in several segments — payment solutions, travel, financial technologies, business processing outsourcing services and startup initiatives — it receives over 80 percent of its revenue from the payments services business. Under this business, the company offers domestic remittance, forex, international remittance and prepaid cards/gift cards. It largely generates revenue based on commissions and transaction fees from providing these services. 

Representatives of private airlines in India — including IndiGo, Vistara, GoFirst, Air India, and SpiceJet — were summoned by the parliamentary standing committee for transport, tourism, and culture to depose on the subject of exorbitant airfares. “The secretariat has sent an invitation to several private airlines and the Association of Private Airport Operators (APAO) to discuss this issue of urgent public importance,” Indian news agency Asian News International reported, citing sources. Last month, a parliamentary panel had asked the Indian civil aviation ministry to cap the upper and lower levels of airfares and ensure that predatory pricing mechanism is not adopted by airlines in the guise of “free market economy.” The reports mentioned that a perfect balance must be maintained between the commercial interests and passengers’ interests. The committee also pointed out the inaccurate information provided by the private airlines on their websites regarding the number of seats left on the flight and the cost of the tickets. There has been a huge surge in air fliers domestically in India since November last year. As per Indian aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s domestic air traffic figures, over 12.5 million passengers were ferried in January and 12 million in February.