New Delhi/Mumbai: InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of budget carrier IndiGo, on Monday reported a steep rise in profit after tax at Rs 496 crore for the three months ended December 2019, mainly helped by higher income.

The company had a profit after tax of Rs 185.2 crore in the year-ago period, according to a regulatory filing.

Its total income surged a robust 25.5 percent to Rs 10,330.2 crore in the latest December quarter from Rs 8,229.3 crore in the corresponding period a year ago.

Of this, passenger ticket revenue was Rs 8,770.30 crore, an increase of 24.1 percent y-o-y, while the ancillary revenue during the quarter stood at Rs 1,037.30 crore, registering a growth of 28.8 percent over the year-ago period, the airline said.

#3QWithCNBCTV18 | @IndiGo6E Q3: Yield at Rs 3.88 vs Rs 3.83 (YoY) while load factor comes in at 87.6% vs 85.3% (YoY) pic.twitter.com/dELREanBdc

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) January 27, 2020

The yield or average ticket price increased 2.1 percent in the December quarter to Rs 3.88 per km, from Rs 3.83 per km in the third quarter of 2018-19. At the same time, the fuel cost reduced 2 percent to Rs 334.19 crore as compared to Rs 341.04 crore, as per the filing.

"I am very enthusiastic about the way we have been developing our network, connecting cities, large and small, to provide more choice to our customers. We have added small cities, such as Shirdi and Shillong, to our network while extending our reach to major cities such as Hanoi and Guangzhou," IndiGo Chief Executive Officer Ronojoy Dutta said.

Representational image. Reuters

The airline started operations on seven new international routes and 17 new domestic routes and operated a peak of 1,634 daily departures during the quarter, he said.

While expanding, IndiGo has also been paying a lot of attention to its customer service levels and for the quarter, the airline's on-time performance was number one among the Indian carriers, Dutta added.

The airline said the year-on-year capacity increase in available seat kilometers (ASK), which is a measure of passenger carrying capacity, is expected to be 20 percent for the March quarter and 23 percent for 2019-20.

For the financial year 2021, capacity increase in ASKs is expected to be around 20 percent.

Total cash balance stood at Rs 20,068 crore, which included Rs 9,412 crore of free cash and Rs 10,656 crore of restricted cash, according to the filing.

IndiGo added 12 aircraft during the quarter under review. Its fleet had 257 aircraft, comprising 126 A320 Ceos, 96 A320Neos,10 A321Neosand 25 ATRs at the end of December 31, 2019.