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Budget airline IndiGo’s net profit more than doubled during the October-December period led by continued demand for air travel and a fuel surcharge introduced in October, the airline said on Friday.

The airline, which has more than 60% share of India’s domestic market, recorded a profit of Rs 2,998.12 crore against Rs 1,422.6 crore in the year-ago period —- an increase of 110% while revenue jumped by 30% to Rs 19,452.15 crore.

As of December 31, IndiGo said it had a total cash balance of Rs 32,428 crore comprising Rs 19,199.6 crore of free cash and Rs 13,228.5 crore of restricted cash.

This is the fifth consecutive quarter of profit for the airline and it has now become net positive again after COVID.

“This series of profitable growth is attributable to the confidence shown by passengers who chose to fly with us. We are grateful for our customers’ confidence and our thousands of employees who continue to put their best foot forward each day to serve them,” Pieter Elbers, chief executive of IndiGo, said.

IndiGo’s profit was boosted by a strong surge in traffic at high ticket prices which helped the airline to increase its yield- a metric for profitability by 2% to Rs 5.48 while lowering jet fuel price helped reduce CASK by 4.2%. CASK is the unit cost to operate each seat for every kilometre. The lower the CASK value, the easier it is to earn revenue.The high fare regime is likely during this quarter due to the supply of aircraft lagging passengers behind. More than 70 IndiGo aircraft are currently grounded due to issues with Pratt & Whitney engines while a supply chain constraint also impedes delivery of new aircraft to airlines.Due to the increasing number of aircraft groundings, IndiGo’s capacity growth during the ongoing quarter (January-March) will be 12% lower than the 15-19% growth it was registering during the previous quarters.

“ I am expecting the yield to hold for this quarter due to a capacity constraint which will persist at least for the first six months of this calendar year,” the airline’s Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Negi said.

The airliner had 358 aircraft in its fleet at the end of the quarter up from 334 in the previous quarter. IndiGo operated at a peak of 2,016 daily flights during the quarter, including non-scheduled flights.

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