InterGlobe Aviation Limited (NSE: INDIGO) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 22, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Richa Chhabra — Head of Investor Relations
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Amyn Pirani — Analyst
Krupashankar — Analyst
Aditya Mongia — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Indigo’s conference call to discuss the third Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Indigo’s conference call to discuss the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 financial results. My name is Neera and I’ll be your coordinator at this time. The participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow today’s management discussion. As a reminder, today’s conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your moderator Ms. Richa Chhabra, head of Investor Relations at Indigo. Thank you. And over to you Ma’.
Richa Chhabra — Head of Investor Relations
Am. Good evening everyone and thank you for joining US for the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 earnings call. We have with us our Chief Executive Officer Peter Elbers and our Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Negi to discuss the financial performance and are available for the Q and 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. Also, we have a few one off items in our third quarter results which have been reported under exceptional items Head.
We will discuss these items today. You can also refer to our press release and investor presentation published this afternoon for more information. 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 and A session will be uploaded subsequently with this. Let me hand over the call to Peter Albers.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Richard Good evening ladies and gentlemen. As this marks our first interaction in the new year, I would like to. Extend my warm wishes for a very. Happy New Year 2026 to all of you. Thank you for joining today’s call. Earlier today we have announced our financial. Results for the third quarter of financial year 2026. The quarter opened with the industry rebounding after a seasonally weak second quarter when Indian carriers had reduced capacity to align with softer demand trends. October marked a period of capacity addition. Ahead of the festive and winning season. This accelerated addition continued through November leading to strong capacity growth across the market supported by strong passenger demand and high load factors signaling solid underlying momentum as we moved into the peak travel period. However, as you are aware, early December we experienced operational disruptions that weighted on our performance. I will address this in detail shortly. During the quarter we served nearly 32 million customers with festive period delivering record highs and our busiest days crossing 3.8 lakh customers. For the full calendar year 2025 we had the privilege of serving around 124 million customers 12.4 million, a 9% increase on a year over year basis.
For the quarter ahead December 25th we reported a sorry for the quarter ended December 2025 we reported a total income of 245 billion rupees, around 7% increase year over year and for the full calendar year 2025 we reported a total income of of 888 billion rupees, around 12% increase on a year over year basis. Profit after tax for the quarter stood at 5491 million rupees or roughly 549 crore rupees. Profit excluding impact of exceptional items and currency movement stood at INR 31,306 million compared to INR 38,461 million during the same year. Now I want to address the operational disruptions that began in the first week of December and that led to cancellations of more than 2,500 flights and delays of hundreds of flights during the period of 3 to 5 December.
As an airline that has prioritized reliability over 19 years, we recognize that the event fell short of the standards we have set for ourselves and our customers and on behalf of everyone at Indigo, we deeply regret the inconvenience caused to our customers during this period. From the outset of these disruptions, our focus was first to support the impacted customers and to minimize passenger inconvenience. We rapidly mobilized teams across airports and significantly expanded our customer service capacity. Our AOCs, customer support, OCC teams, ground staff and others worked literally around the clock to ensure we were able to.
Restore operations to normal levels within a. Very short period of time. Post normalized operations we scaled back to swiftly to operate around 21 to 2200 daily flights. NPS was back to normal levels and we rebounded back to 3.8 lakh customers every day. We are thankful to our customers, our employees, the government, aviation authorities and all other parties in the Indian aviation ecosystem for their support in helping us to turn around our operations. We have processed timely refunds of all the impacted customers and further, as a gesture of care, we also extended travel vouchers to lakhs of severely impacted and stranded customers. In addition to regulatory compensation, we’re in the process of conducting an in depth review of the robustness and resilience of our internal processes to ensure we emerge stronger out of the event.
Additionally, we have strengthened some of our. Internal processes and preparing thoroughly for the transition to the revised FTTL norms in February. Now to update you on our new introduction. New Introduction recently we proudly introduced India’s very first Airbus 321XLR, a milestone for. Indigo and for Indian aviation industry. The aircraft has a dual class cabin with 12 Indigo spreadsheets and 183 economy seats offering greater seat pitch than our current narrowbody fleet for enhanced comfort on long haul flights. For the first time, Indigo customers will enjoy hot meals on board with ovens, charging points at every seat and thoughtfully designed interiors that make the seven to eight hour journey seamless. Tomorrow itself we will commence our operations and our Mumbai Athens route followed by Delhi Athens the day after. On the 25th of December we were honored to be the very first airline to begin operations at Navi Mumbai International Airport.
We have started with around 15 daily flights to key cities and will continue to expand our presence in the months ahead including adding international routes. We had launched our Business Class product Stretch in November of 24 and have received a very positive response during the first year. Currently we’re operating stretch on eight domestic and nine international routes. Building on the positive response received for our Stretch product, we’re expanding it to a total of 65 aircraft enabling wider network options for business and premium customers. Another important milestone this quarter was the rapid scale up of our Blue Chip loyalty program which has now reached around 10 million customers.
This is a significant step forward in our customer engagement journey. Blue Chip helps us to deepen relationships with our frequent travelers and understand their preferences better. While early December saw one of the most challenging weeks in our company history, it’s also important that this event does not solely define our journey as an airline and our track record. Over the past 19 plus years, we have built a track record of scale, strong operational performance and service that speaks for itself. During the calendar year 2025, so that includes the December month we delivered one of the highest OTP levels amongst the top 20 global airlines.
Today, Indigo employs more than 68,000 dedicated professionals and have served over 850 million customers since inception, all while maintaining robust operational performance. This legacy of trust remains the very foundation on which we’ll continue to improve and serve our customers. While every crisis is unique, the lesson from this event will enable us to strengthen our systems and take certain long term measures to enhance operational resilience. Indigo was built on the values of reliability, accessibility, discipline and customer focus. This moment is an opportunity to reflect, learn and rebuild stronger. We continue to serve India with the same focus that built this very airline.
Thank you. Let me now hand over the Call to Gaurav to discuss the financial performance in more detail.
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you Peter and good evening everyone. For the quarter ended December 2025, on a consolidated basis we delivered total income of 245 billion rupees up over 6.7% year over year. Despite the operational disruption we faced in early December. In terms of profitability, EBITDA came in at 60 billion rupees, broadly similar to EBITDA. During the same quarter last year, we reported a net profit after tax of 5.5 billion rupees with over 2% profit margin compared to 24 billion rupees in the same quarter last year. As you’re aware, the rupee has depreciated significantly in the past 12 months by around 5% rupee depreciation depreciated by more than 1% at the third quarter end as compared to the second quarter end leading to a forex loss net of hedging of 10.4 billion rupees on our dollar based net future obligations of around $10 billion.
Further, this quarter saw impacts of one off items reflected under exceptional items on the reported profitability during the quarter. The Government of India has consolidated multiple existing labor legislations into unified framework comprising four new labor codes. These legislative changes have revised the definition of wages for the purposes of computation of employee benefits and expanded the scope of eligibility of certain employees related Social Security benefits such as gratuity and compensated absence. We have evaluated the incremental impact arising from the implementation of the new labor codes. Based on our current estimates, we have recognized an estimated provision of 9.7 billion rupees towards the implementation of these new labor laws.
Additionally, the operational disruptions we faced in early December led to significant cancellations and delays leading to customer inconvenience. The Company, in accordance with the applicable regulation, is compensating the affected customers and in addition as a gesture of care, also extending travel vouchers to the severely impacted customers. On January 17, 2026, the company received an order from the DGCA imposing a penalty of 222 million rupees in connection with the operational disruptions. While the order is being evaluated by the Company, the amount has been provisioned for as an exceptional item. These items together with the expenses incurred to provide support and assistance to the impacted customers towards accommodation, transportation, meals resulted in a total provision of approximately 5.8 billion rupees.
The net profit excluding the impact of the exceptional items and currency depreciation was around 31.3 billion rupees as compared to 38.5 billion rupees during the same period last year. Based on our revised estimates of profitability for the year, we have adjusted our nine months current tax provision down by 154 crore rupees in this quarter. Further, based on assessments of our short term taxable profits on a conservative basis, we have reassessed the deferred tax assets and retained IT down to 252crore rupees. We have provided our revised capacity guidance on 10th December. Capacity in terms of ASK grew by 11% for the quarter at the upper end of the guided range.
In terms of passenger revenue, the quarter started on a strong note with October and November witnessing healthy loads driven by festive seasons. December had the impact of the operational disruptions, cancellations, optimized capacity and then scheduled adjustments along with the subdued booking curves. Passenger unit revenue came in at 4.51 which is 4.5% lower on a year over year basis. In line with our revised guidance, the yield came in at 5.33 which is around 2% lower compared to the same period last year and a load factor of around 85% which is again 2 points lower as compared to the same period last year.
Now on the cost side our fuel gas has reduced by 3% compared to an increase of around 2% in benchmark Singapore jet fuel prices primarily driven by benefits of our negotiated rates, changes in fleet mix and increased international network. On a year over year basis CASC came in at 2.96 rupees, around 2% higher due to annual contractual increases across the line items. Inflated dollar denominated cost due to depreciation of the India duties by 5%. Moderation in the capacity growth leading to fixed cost being spread over a slightly lower base of Esks and it was partially offset by lower number of damp leases.
We are currently estimating mid single digit percentage increase in our unit costs including excluding fuel and forex for the full year 2026 as compared to the full year 2025. This revised guidance is based on the revised capacity estimations on the balance sheet side. We ended the December quarter with a capitalized operating lease liability of 524.8 billion rupees and a total debt including the capitalized operating lease liability of around 768.6 billion rupees. Our right to use assets at quarter end were 551.1 billion rupees. We continue to maintain a strong liquidity as we ended the December quarter with a free cash of 369.4 billion rupees and a restricted cash of 146.6 billion rupees.
Our robust liquidity gives us the flexibility to navigate short term challenges while investing confidently in the long term growth. A key part of our strategy is to have significant pool of unencumbered asset which ensures we have a strong credit profile, ability to respond decisively to market opportunities and manage unforeseen risk without constraint. In addition, it also helps us in mitigating certain portion of our foreign currency exposure in this direction. We have announced a capital investment of 8, $20 million in Gift City entity to be deployed primarily towards acquisition of aviation assets. We have utilized part of such investments towards prepayment of loans of 12 financed lease aircraft resulting in ownership of these aircrafts.
We are building our balance sheet that is not only strong today but capable of supporting scale and ambition of tomorrow. With this transaction we have a total of 28 owned aircraft at the end of the quarter and around 20% of our aircraft either own or finance leased. In terms of the fleet addition in the calendar year 2025 we received deliveries of 57 aircrafts from our original order book, 55 A320 aircraft and two ATR aircrafts and again an important milestone in our position as it positions us as the largest recipient of Airbus aircraft globally for the second consecutive year, accounting for around 7% of Airbus deliveries worldwide.
During the quarter we inducted a total of 24 aircraft from our original order book out of which 18 were inducted through our Gift City entity. In addition, we also inducted 12 aircraft in the form of damp leases, thus adding 36 aircraft on a gross basis. We redelivered 13 aircraft during the quarter, resulting in a total closing fleet of 440 aircraft at the quarter end. Moving on to the forecast for the fourth quarter of the financial year, we are expecting to add capacity of around 10% as compared to the same period last year. This moderation in our capacity growth for the fourth quarter is primarily driven by adjustments related to reduced schedule to align with the regulatory requirements.
Further, on the revenue side faces the trend that we’ve seen in January, we are estimating an early to mid single digit moderation in our unit passenger revenue as compared to a high base of the same quarter last year which had a very strong tailwind in the form of Religious congregation for the Mahaku. As we close, I want to thank our customers, employees and shareholders and other stakeholders for the trust and patience. Over the past 19 years operational efficiency has been a hallmark and that legacy guides us as we move forward. We are committed to learn from the experience of Operational disruptions and building an operation that is stronger, more resilient and ready for the future.
With this, let me hand it back to Richard.
Richa Chhabra — Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Peter 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. And with that we’re ready for the Q and A.
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the Touchton telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from Runav Binet from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi team, thanks for the opportunity. Just one question. As we move away from the cancellation episode, could you comment how that will impact a capacity like 10% of our winter schedule was cut. When do you expect it back? Do you expect any impact on summer schedule B its recurring impact on CASC fuel? Like are there any cascade line items, staff or so where you see that FY27 cost structures could be higher than where we are today. So that is it. Thanks.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
At this point in time all our focus is to make sure that we have a smooth transition into the month of February, bearing in mind the capacity curtailment which is there, which all in all is leading to that capacity guidance which was just sharing by GORA for. A growth of 10% year over year in this fourth quarter. So bearing in mind this curtailment of capacity and again all the focus of the teams and the operation is really to make sure that we have that smooth transition. At this point in time we have not concluded yet our planning for the summer. So I guess giving any number in. Terms of projected growth numbers or impact. Numbers would be very premature. Thanks for that Peter. And comments on casc. Any recurring impact of this on casc. As far as the casc like has been expressed, there is going to be an increase of the CASC given the curtailment on the capacity side. But what we are looking at at least for the short term to close FY 2026 upwards of mid to single digits compared to FY 2025. So as we as we further refine the numbers for 2027, we’ll come and communicate. But as of now the short term guidance towards FY 2026 is a mid to single digit increase on the cash compared to 2025.
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
Financially, thanks for that, Gaurav. And just to reconfirm, in fact, the impact of the new FTDL norms on the staff expense would already be built in. Right. Because you yesterday stated that you are all set to meet these norms on the 10th of Feb. So it means that the staff cost is already there in your numbers.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
That’s right.
Unidentified Participant
Great, thanks. Thanks team. I’ll come back in. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from line of Amin Pirani from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Amyn Pirani — Analyst
Yes, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is actually a continuation on, you know, what Vinay asked on the CAC X Fuel. Now, Gaurav, your guidance during the year has changed and I’m appreciate that it is mostly because of exfoliant factors based on FX as well as the FTCL norms as it has evolved. So can you give us some color as to when you’re giving this latest guidance? What is the kind of FX expectations or expectations on costs you know, that you’re building in because it has been a moving target and like I said, you know, it has been driven by exogenous factors.
So, you know, it will help us understand as to what you are already building in in terms of these things. And how should we think about, you know, maybe the next few quarters.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Again? I mean, that’s the most difficult part in terms of projecting what the FX impact is going to be. If you see if I just go back what the guidance was when we started Rio, the guidance was that we’re going to be flattish to FY 2025. So that’s how we had started the guidance on the cost side, knowing that we had a bit of a high 2025 given that we had a significant number of damp leases at that particular point over the course of the year. Then we started to moderate that guidance because the FX started to behave the way it started.
So we said that the CASC is going to start, the cost is going to start increasing towards 1 to 2 points higher than what we had guided. Along with that came the headwind that the moderation in our EOGs was not to the same levels and as a result we need to bring back damp leases which like I mentioned, we brought back more damp leases in this particular quarter. Also, the headwind on the FX continues to grow on us. So it’s becoming difficult. I can’t pinpoint a number to say that this is what it’s going to be.
Average increase that we’ve seen throughout the year has been a 5% increase in FX. When we started the year it was more towards a 2 or a 3% increase. That’s already gone up. This quarter itself has been a 1% increase in FX. The rupee already is behaving the way it’s behaving as you would have seen in the news today. Also large part of that cost is again subject to when you’re settling those during the quarter. So very difficult to call that out. But the guidance that we are saying mid to mid single digit increase potentially factors in a reasonable kind of projection on the FX has already been catered to.
If there’s going to be an abnormal increase, then the unit cost will be even higher. Sorry, I don’t have a pinpointed kind of. There’s so many variables and moving parts right now that we are dealing with. It’s very difficult to kind of call that out. But we, as we get more information, sure appreciate that.
Amyn Pirani — Analyst
And this, you know, related one, you already put in some exceptional items. As far as the Labor Code is concerned, are there any recurring costs that we should watch out for? Because I think one is, I think gratuity related or other things for existing employees. But I think going forward also there is some changes in the way you need to make these provisions as a percentage of salary. So any recurring kind of impact that you should watch out for or there’s nothing that you foresee as a.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
So today what we’ve done is we’ve taken the new Labor Code as an exceptional item. So it’s not coming in the cost line items. Going forward. The impact of following the new rules is going to start coming in the employee, employee benefits line items. So this is going to roll over from a catch up or a true up of the new rules which has happened today. Tomorrow it’s all going to be part of the employee benefits line item. So that’s where it’s going to be kind of transitioning from an exceptional line item into an employee benefits line item related to this new Labor Code.
Because there’s going to be an ongoing impact of truing up based on the number of employees and then the tenure. The actuarials are going to run the models and give us what the number needs to be. So that’s going to transition into employee benefits from exceptional. That’s one. And then the, the ongoing annual inflation that you have, part of the contractual terms that you have is going to be part of the cost structure.
Amyn Pirani — Analyst
Okay. And all that is built in your guidance of Cascade.
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
So like I said, I’ve just given you a short term guidance right now. So I’M not giving you anything which is long term. This is just a short term guidance. So this will start rolling in from April onwards also.
Amyn Pirani — Analyst
Understood. Thank you and I’ll come back to the queue.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Kupashankar from Avenders Park. Please go ahead.
Krupashankar — Analyst
Good evening and thank you for the opportunity. My first question would be on the current situation shortage. Just wondering if there are adequate weapons opportunities globally for Indian Airlines to meet the demand supply mismatch.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
At this point in time. We have a couple of damp leases in operation already. So we do have a number of damp leases supporting the network of Indigo already. And that was decided and implemented already prior to the operational disruption. You know some of the challenges we have in terms of AOGs are global supply chain challenges and we that there’s not an abundance of lease opportunities all across the world. So I think we are good where we are now in the wet leases we have. And these are also not leases you can induct kind of overnight.
It requires a proper preparation and paperwork and all these sort of preparation to have planes here. So we focus now on making sure that we have a good matching of the pilot availability and the program being operated including some additional focus and preparation to make sure that the FDTL in FEP will be implemented smoothly.
Krupashankar — Analyst
Thank you. One more question was primarily on do you see incremental employee cost because of inflationary aspects beyond the short term guidance? What you’re giving Gaurav is that something we should probably consider given the fact that historically these cases have resulted in a very strong explanation in employee costs.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Again Prupa, give us time because we’re planning up to March. More important point, like Peter said, February 10th is going to be the more critical point. We’ll address all aspects in terms of how we ensure that we have the right kind of manpower and so support to execute to that. So give us more time. I’ll not be in a position to answer that question. I think it’s perhaps if I may add to that a lot of work is being done by the teams to restore the operation. And you have seen that even in the various communications that after three days of disruption the operation was announced that we would expect back to stability between 10 and 15. The reality was it was on 8 or 9 already back to to a stable operation. We are serving for basically after the. Middle of December we were back to. 3.5, 3.8 lakh customers every day with an OTP basically which was actually good at that point in time. So despite the fact that the IROP season has started. So despite all the problems we had in the first week, all the focus was on that. And we’ll come back to some of the more detailed questions you’re rightfully pointing out to Glov but perhaps a bit of understanding for all the focus we had on restoring the operation and making sure that we were dealing with our customers, processing the refunds, having the gesture of care being in place and all the elements leading to that.
You see that back in the results. With the 577 crore as an exceptional item I think it’s good to highlight on the like for like reduction of the pat there’s three components which are highlighted in the press release. One is the exceptional implement the exceptional item around the implementation of the labor law, the operational disruptions obviously 577 the labor law is close to 1000crores and then there’s the FX impact to which. Korov has already alluded to.
Krupashankar — Analyst
Thanks for answering my question.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from Nana Pratikumar from Jefferies India. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, good evening. I have a couple of questions. Firstly can you discuss how your schedules adjusted versus what we were thinking on capacity growth of upper the Mid teens for 3Q and 4Q is the new scenario on capacity cuts suggested by the regulator?
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
You know there was a file schedule. And the regulator has told us to cut down on the domestic network for. The on that file schedule which we. Have done and there’s always you file for a season we had already some months in operation then there are some operational impacts but that if you add that all together we come to the 11% of capacity which we had in Q3 and 10% which we now forecasting for the Q4 quarter. I mean I was wanting to ask. Like. The schedule adjustment was towards planning cutting your growth be like attributable to the new routes which you would have been planning or I mean the popular metro to metro route or how was it adjusted. Together with the guidance on the capacity cut There were some guidances on you know you shouldn’t cancel or should not leave certain routes. So we looked at all factors and all sectors. Of course we try to keep the. Impact for our customers as limited as possible. So you find sectors where we used to operate five a day, they are. Now back to four a day or. When we are three a day we’re back to two a day. And I think a proof of that is that the Navi Mumbai opened on 25th December and we started operation in Navi Mumbai in itself, as I mentioned earlier, we have the XLR which we received at the early part of January, very big milestone for Indian aviation that will start to operate tomorrow. The first international flight to Europe from Mumbai itself. So we took the government order and we tried to minimize the impacts on the network coverage which we have throughout the nation. I think I highlighted that number before.
Indigo has a network covering all the major cities in the country. And if my number is correct, I think we have 97 domestic destinations in operation. 90% of the Indian population lives within 100 km of an Indigo served airport. So we really try to retain that. Proposition to our customers, make sure that. We have the connectivity in place, that the connectivity remains there. So you’ll find it primarily on routes where we had four or five a day and now cutting down to three or four a day in that network. And that will be also the focus for the Q4 which we have started now. So that’s the way we have done it for December and we continue to liquidate that that way for the third quarter. How we exactly develop the network for next year, that’s another step to be taken. But as I said earlier, we had to climb from the low point of.
3 to 5 December to recovery first. Then to stabilize actually to stabilization first. Recovery go to irops. IROPS is now coming to sort of the end of the line. For those on the line, those on the call who live in Delhi, we’ve all seen quite a challenging past couple of six weeks with fog. And not only in Delhi, but also Prayagraj, Amritsar and a lot of other places, Chandigarh where we have been confronted with quite foggy situations. I think the teams have done a very good job in helping our customers to the best possible way in these airport closures and low visibility operations. Now we move to FAP and thereafter we start to build on the network for the summer.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thank you. My other question is can you elaborate on your pilot hiring plan which you would have been thinking in October, November last year basically before the disruptions and before the rules which was already known based on the number of aircraft additions also accept in following month and under new flight duty norm and how that plans have like changed post disruption if at all and also if you can tell about how is the industry’s ability to like kind of source pilots from based on number of commercial pilot licenses that are issued in the country.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Well, pilot planning is a is a constant process which is constantly being being reviewed and as you have seen even in our in Our operation, be it AOGs, be it other dimensions. It’s a process which is constantly being reviewed, whether it’s the timing of delivery of xlr, whether it’s some of these new rules and regulations in place. So it’s a permanent process. I think all the growth over the last couple of years was supported by. A growth of pilots as well. And we continue that track going forward. And clearly we have a. A much longer horizon when it comes to pilot hiring on that. And then, you know, you need to link the pilots to the network you’re operating and make the connection between those two elements. So we continue on that track of consistently reviewing the schedule and hiring as well.
Unidentified Participant
No, my question was, has it changed materially versus what you were thinking in October, November?
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
Again, it’s a continuous process and I don’t have the exact thing of last year, October here in front of me, but clearly it is a continuous process and we keep focusing on that, on an adequate hiring process.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from nanof Chintan Seth from Giric Capital. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
Yes, please.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Thanks. So on the BGCA penalty, if you can, this is. Is it any more, you know, review is pending, which. Which can result into higher penalty going forward, or this is final reading from the regulator and nothing incrementally likely to come through going forward. If you can elaborate on that.
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
At this point in time, we have no reason to believe so we have received the orders. The orders are being evaluated by the board. I think there’s been a press release on that from the company when the orders were received. They’ve been reviewed and we have no reason to believe otherwise.
Unidentified Participant
Sure. And Second, on the FDTL, the 10% guidance, which for the 4Q, it implies that we are already adequately prepared ourselves in terms of recruitment and everything. And that is factored in our assumptions.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Right. In terms of pilot availability and booster availability for 4Q.
Unidentified Speaker
Yes. Okay. Okay. And the 10% is for the capacity. Capacity.
Unidentified Participant
Sure. I’ll jump back in. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Pulkit from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. So thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first is I want to better understand your guidance for Q4. So in your capacity, guidance of 10%, is it fair to assume that your domestic capacity will not grow? All the growth will come in your international capacity and similarly in your revenue per unit guidance, is it fair to assume that you have not assumed the fair caps being removed for the entire quarter. That’s question number one. As has been in the past quarters, the growth is going to be much larger on the international side. There is some growth that we’ve considered the domestic side, but a disproportionate amount of growth related to the capacity guidance is towards international, which is in line with what the earlier quarters have also been. Okay. And on revenue.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, yeah. So again, on guidance on the PRAs side, it does factor in the cap that is in play today.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, very clear. My second question is, assuming there was no cap on capacity, if you were to run your full capacity in this quarter, can you tell us what will be the total number of pilots and first officers that you will be short of? Just one absolute number?
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
I don’t think that is a calculation one can make. You make a network and then a network has a link to a number of pilots and depending on rosters, all kind of underlying assumptions. So we cannot just have a number and say this would have been otherwise the number.
Unidentified Participant
I’ll tell you where I’m coming from, Peter. I’m just trying to understand that, you know, and there’s so much press around this. So it’s always colors one’s. One’s thought process is what is the actual shortage that we have at this stage in terms of pilots for us to be able to run a full, full capacity. So any rough number would also be really helpful.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
I understand you ask for any number rough or less rough, but I think. I don’t think we’re in the position. To share any number.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, thank you for your answers.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from line of Venkat from Three Sigma Financial Service. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations for bringing the operations back online. You know, with the media and everybody actually pouncing on Indico, we were really nervous as investors, but good that we were able to bring back the operations. So my question is primarily on foreign exchange. In the previous call, Peter mentioned that, you know, overseas operations will partially offset the foreign exchange whatever, you know, the price, the fluctuation, the rupee dollar fluctuation and also the hedging part. So what was the difference of adding these two against what we call the foreign exchange fluctuation? What was the percentage difference we had?
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Sorry, I couldn’t understand the question. But let me tell you what we’re doing because we talked about the foreign exchange exposure that continues to grow. Today we’ve got a US dollar exposure close to $10 billion, largely consisting of all the aircraft that we’ve taken as well. As our maintenance obligation. Now, in order to kind of de risk ourselves with the exposure, we’ve taken various steps. Step one was we’ve started to hedge which we have already shared. We had a billion dollar hedge program that was in play. We’ve scaled that up to now $3 billion. So we now start hedging ourselves.
We were hedging for the next 12 months. We’ll extend the tenure so that we are able to hedge up to $3 billion. That’s step one. The second step that we’ve already taken which we also called out Use the cash that we have to start acquiring the aircraft. That in a way also limits any further exposure that you carry on the dollar side. The third element is growth of our international operations because that also kind of creates a natural hedge. Today we were largely doing domestic operations and short haul operations. With the expansion to Europe there is going to be a revenue stream that is going to generate non INR based kind of revenues which is going to create a natural hedge.
Those are the steps that we’ve already taken in order to de risk ourselves given the exposure that is developing on the FX side. But these are again these are steps that we’ve already started to walk down on. But it will take time for them to scale up.
Unidentified Participant
I see. My next question is on. Hello. Yeah, I’ll come back in the queue.
Unidentified Speaker
Sir, go ahead. You’re audible.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, I come back in the queue. For the next question. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from line of Aditya Mongya from Kodak Securities. Please go ahead.
Aditya Mongia — Analyst
Well, thank you for the opportunity. The question that I had was more focused on the guidance for CASC for the full year. As in it implies a fairly large yoy growth in the fourth quarter. So could you elaborate on which line items are actually driving this change in guidance? And are there any one off effects such as rejoining bonuses that one needs to strip out? Because it seems as if the fourth quarter CASC would be a fairly large number.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
This is a continued guidance that was given at the beginning of the year. We’ve been scaling that guidance upwards like I said. So when we had given a guidance going to be flat to 2025 in the earlier quarters we had guided that this is already trending upwards for the reasons because FX exposure continues to be higher so the dollar denominated expenses are becoming costlier. We mentioned that damp leases are also which were supposed to taper off given the AOG situation would have improved is going to come back which has already started to come back. It has an incremental cost that we had not anticipated as well as now the capacity gains.
So the impact on the CASC is going to be more driven by the capacity being moderated downwards. We had a guidance which was higher than what we were trending. So it’s not exclusively on the fourth quarter. The guidance for the total year which we are saying is going to be somewhere on the mid single digit is year over year. So a large part started to play out with the capacity being scaled down in Q3 followed by Q4. So those are the elements but broadly the other parameters that were there in terms of increased cost because of escalation, increased cost because of FX offset by reduced damp leases that we had anticipated, which is not taking share are the drivers to it.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. The second question that I had was. More on the slots that have been taken by dbca. Just wanted to understand that as our understanding this is a temporary loss of slots and by default they are available to be bid for in the summer schedule or will the final authority over here will be whatever DGCS says on these slots?
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Well, if airlines are not operating certain slots, it is the duty of the airline to hand back unutilized slots arising out of non utilization or planned consolations. And we know what is our plan now for the next, for the next two months. So we, we’re handing these slots back. The reallocation of those slots is the prerogative of the airport and that will. Be part of further sort of evaluation. Going forward on how that exactly will play out.
Aditya Mongia — Analyst
Okay, so do I understand that between the airport and the airline to then decide post MERS or will DGCA have a role to play in deciding who gets what?
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
I think it’s the airports who are handing out the slots. To the best of my knowledge. Let me put a little disclaimer here. To the best of my knowledge.
Aditya Mongia — Analyst
Understood. I’ll get back into the queue for more questions. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Achal Kumar from hsbc. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, hi, thanks for my question. So first of all on going back to ftpl, just wanted to understand given that new FDTA norms and that means increased requirement of number of pilots, do you expect the growth could slow down going ahead or do you think, I mean you’ve been expecting one aircraft per week and two aircraft per year and that means whatever the growth comes in. So do you think that growth will continue and you’ll be able to hire the pilots with the new FDTN norms or do you think generally the the growth would slow down because of new FDTN norms and the pilot hiring in any which way is a big challenge.
Can you give us a bit of color please?
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. As I said earlier, we have a long term and continuous update of our pilots pilot reviews that includes the longer term fleet planning which we’re having, including that flow of pilots. Then there’s always an influx and an outflux of pilots and that’s the balance. Of course we look closely at how many pilots are joining or how many pilots are coming through the internal pipelines and what are potential or possible attritions for pilots who are deciding to leave the company. So there’s a permanent review of that process. And as I said earlier, we have not made any changes in our long term ambitions and our long term growth plans.
And I think we mentioned earlier, but that’s by now a year and a half back to double in size by the end of the decade. The planes orders are there and we are planning accordingly.
Unidentified Participant
So you mean that the growth will continue as it is, as you planned?
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, and there’s always going to be quarter over quarter variations in terms of. Seasonality, airport capacity, geopolitical dimensions. I think there’s a lot of dimensions. If there’s new opportunities, Indigo will step in. As you have seen, the airspace or the flights between China and India were resumed and Indigo was the first one actually to start the operations, first from Kolkata to Guangzhou and later on from Delhi to Guangzhou. So these are new opportunities and new developments. We have started the flights from Navi Mumbai. So we’re fully committed to our plans, our growth and our future. And in that equation there’s always going to be quarterly changes bearing with seasonality opportunities.
And Gore already mentioned we had some capacity refinement in the Q2 given the traditionally lower season. We were stepping up in Q3 where. Actually November was already stronger than October. And as the Indian aviation market continues. To grow and mature, we are seeing. Seasonality patterns like you see in other parts of the world increasingly with high demand in peak seasons and lower demand in lower seasons. And if you look to the overall development of the Indian market, that’s exactly what we see happening and we’ll align our capacity to that. So I think there’s a short term. Quarterly focus which we always have and there’s a long term strategy, ambition, growth, opportunity which is still going to be there. And all the plans we’re having to continue to build to help India into moving into a global aviation hub. I mean just look at the number of 124 million customers which we served over the calendar year of 2025. That was a 9% increase year over year. If you compare that to a 77ish million number of customers we had around just the 22 year, it just shows what an incredible increase it was from 77 million customers to 124 million customers.
We operated last year, calendar year 25. We operated a little short of 8. Lakh flights in a single year. That’s a number which brings us to number seven or number eight in the. World with an on time performance number. Which is also somewhere in the top three to four in the world depending a little bit on the metric you use, including even the December number. So I think the fundamentals of the company in terms of growth, market ambitions, plans are there. Clearly this has been an effect, a major operational disruption affecting our customers. We take it internally also as a. Way how to address processes, structures, further. Refinement, see what we can do in digitization and review our SOPs and stuff like that. We try also to learn this has happened in other parts of the world. A few years ago, other airlines or actually more recently even other airlines went through the same thing. So we see what we can learn from other large operators. And you know, one side is that. Indigo has become such a, such a. Large operator from where it used to be that we should also start to compare and learn ourselves from some of the developments in other parts of the world of airlines who are in that same league of sort of 10 largest airline in the world. So back to your question. No change in plans and growth strategy. You will see some, you continue to see some variations quarter over quarter. Quarter actually like we would have had this year. I mean if the December would not have happened, clearly would have had a different number for Q3. But then if you look at the results for Q3 and I think it was highlighted already, you know There was. The 577 crore but the other exceptional. Items are of a nature which are even larger as compared to this. So the underlying foundations and even the October and November operation actually was pretty much on track to the initial plans. Sorry for elaborating a bit more but. I think this is about the last question. So I thought, let me, let me just highlight that.
operator
Thank you. Achal Kumar, I’ll request you to come back for a follow up question. I request all the participants kindly restrict to one question. Next question is from Nano. Janesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Just one question on the pilot side. As of FY25 our pilot count was 5,400 if I’m not mistaken. But the document that was published yesterday which essentially mentions that we are on track to kind of meet the revised schedule and we have the desired pilot availability, the count mentioned over there was about 4,600 odd. So if you can just explain this a bit.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
What probably you have seen is account of the Airbus line ready pilots. Alongside that there are other pilots that operate our ATR also. So if you add up those, you’ll probably get to the number that you’re talking about. So this one is excluding the ATR and this was only for the line ready pilots database. So you’ve got more pilots than the number that you quoted. The one that you quoted initially is a consolidation of line ready pilots pilots which are with us but are not flying. And then the ATR pilots also contact.
Unidentified Participant
So one last question from my side. I think at the 2Q call we had stated that the FRAC is likely to remain flat or report marginal growth in cq, whereas in this quarter we have seen some kind of decline on that side. While I understand that because of the issues that we have faced, there could be some capacity constraint that can come through, but I believe that has also impacted pricing. But October and November I think trended well. So just wanted to understand how come the pricing got impacted in December so much that the overall track for the quarter declined on yy.
Gaurav M. Negi — Chief Financial Officer
That’s you’re right, October and November the demand returned compared to the quarter before. We saw a healthy growth in the market and clearly these three days there was an uncertainty how quick Indigo would restore its operation and there were different views on how quick the capacity would be back. And that clearly has led to some views in terms of people booking and going in other places. So I think it’s a natural sort of fallout or consequence of those three days and pretty soon I think we’ll be back to regular market dynamics.
operator
Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. We’ll take that as the last question. I’ll now hand the conference over to Mr. Peter Elbers for closing comments.
Pieter Elbers — Chief Executive Officer
Thank you so much. Good. Thanks for participating in the call. Let me highlight that despite the operational challenges we faced in December, our teams have acted quickly and decisively, proving the. Resilience on our operations and the strength of the Indigo people. Their focused execution helped us to stabilize the network swiftly, allowing us to continue delivering reliable service at scale. And thanks to these efforts, we served nearly 32 million customers during this quarter. This quarter was also significant for our long term growth trajectory. We welcomed India’s first Airbus XLR and continued expanding our fleet to meet future demands. Being one of Airbus largest global recipients of aircraft for the second year in a row underscores the scale of of our network and the deep confidence our partners have in Indigo’s strategy and execution. The first week of December with operational challenges does not impact our fundamentals and our long term growth trajectory as I just eluded.