Maharashtra and Rajasthan have already announced restrictions on movement, though they haven’t banned air travel yet. The situation seems to be a repeat of last year, when a spate of lockdowns caused airline stocks to lose altitude.
InterGlobe Aviation, which runs IndiGo, was down 3.24 per cent at Rs 1,529.70, and its peer SpiceJet slumped 5.93 per cent to Rs 61.90. The stocks have fallen 11 per cent and 35 per cent on a year-to-date basis, respectively.
Publicly available data on air travel has also started to show a decline in business, spelling trouble for both listed budget carriers. This is when they were yet to fully recover from last year’s impact.
Both companies have been declaring losses for several quarters now.
ICICI Securities in a report said the number of weekly average daily fliers came in at 1,93,000 in the week ended April 17 as against 2,32,000 in the previous week. The average number of departures also declined to 2,130 vis-a-vis 2,300 in the prior week. The number of fliers per departure declined to 90 from 101.
“Rising Covid cases and increasing lockdown restriction from various states will remain an overhang on air traffic,” Anshuman Deb and Ravin Kurwa, analysts at ICUCi Securities said.
If the numbers keep declining, as is expected by analysts, the stock prices could face additional pressure, they suggested. This will also mean airliners will take even more time to come back in black and will keep bleeding money for a while now.
Defunct Jet Airways was also down 5 per cent at Rs 84.80.
