Since the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India in 2007, for the first time both the merged national airlines has posted an operating profit. The Maharaja has recently reported that they gained the operating profit of Rs.105 crore in the FY-2015-16 due to the fact that the costs have come down following the fall in oil prices. This also happens because of the increase in the passenger revenue owing to the high rise in the domestic air travel. In the fiscal 2014-15, the Air India has reported an operating loss of Rs. 2636 crore. The 24% fall in the fuel price has contributed a lot to this high turnaround. However, according to the AI this operating profit mainly gained due to enhanced network and improved efficiencies but definitely, the lower fuel prices also promotes lower fares. The ticket yield was also get lowered by almost 8%. In the previous year Air India carried 1.6 crore passengers and in 2015-16, it managed to carry 1.8 crore passengers. In the year 2015-16, the total revenue of Air India fell to Rs. 20.526 crore from 20,613 crores in 2014-15.
Ebitdar rose to 3857 crores in the previous fiscal year indicating improved operating performance as in the previous year it was only 1436 crore. The Air India incurred the forex loss of Rs 350 crore in the year 2015-16 due to rising currency fluctuations. It is not right to say that all the operating profit of the company came only due to fall in the oil prices. Of course, that has helped a lot but according to the company they have also focussed a lot on enhancing network, adding routes and improving services to attract passengers and thus Aircraft utilization has gone up. All these factors and fall of oil prices has helped a lot to generate high operating profit this year. Aviation fuel contributed roughly 40 percent to the airline’s operational cost and the lowered fare cost of the Airline managed to get more and more customers. Airlines’ operational cost per kilometer came down to Rs. 3.88 from Rs. 4.59 this year.