Yatra Online, Inc.
Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 9 Sep 2020

[Operator:]

Good day, and welcome to the Yatra First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. As a reminder, we will not be taking any questions from the press today. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Manish Hemrajani, please go ahead sir.

[Manish Hemrajani:]

Thank you, Holly. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Yatra's fiscal first quarter 2021 financial results for the period ended June 30, 2020. I am pleased to be joined on the call today by Yatra's CEO and Co-Founder, Dhruv Shringi. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, reflects management's views as of today, September 9, 2020. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise the information. Before we begin our formal remarks, allow me to remind you that certain statements made during the course of the discussion may constitute forward-looking statements which are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ, including factors that maybe beyond the company's control. These include expectations and assumptions related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, for a description of these risks please refer to our filings with the SEC and our press release.

[Dhruv Shringi:]

Thank you, Manish. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. I hope you and your families are all safe and in good health. This is the first earnings call that we are doing in a little over a year in that we were involved with the Ebix merger. In the meantime, the global COVID-19 pandemic situation requiring the cessation of all non-essential air travel in India, while the situation is not what we had expected, it is the situation that we face. During this time of extraordinary changes and challenges, I'm proud of the way our teams have responded to these and that included against factors which are not directly within our control. This is also not the first time that we are facing a challenging situation of the company. From the financial crisis back in 2008, to the bankruptcy of Kingfisher Airlines and the subsequent collapse of domestic aviation in India in 2012, we've been through difficult periods before and each time we've come out stronger. And I feel confident that the same will be the case this time as well. We are starting to see a gradual recovery in travel after the reopening of domestic aviation towards the end of May post India's nationwide lockdown in the month of March, April, earlier this year. We believe the worst is behind us now. We've made all these essential changes to the operations to cut costs to the bare minimum, and after capital rise in June earlier this year, we believe we have the balance sheet to see us back to profitability. We now look forward to resuming the same growth and profitability trajectory we were on before all this unfolded. We are excited about a multi-pronged approach to increase shareholder value. As you will recall, we are one of the leading OTAs in India and the largest corporate travel management business in the country as well. First, with regards to the return of travel in India after the lockdown, on the consumer side, we started to see some early signs of recovery in travel in India since late May, when air travel was allowed to start back. Domestic flyers have now returned to about 25% of people with levels and that number continues to grow and we expect this to reach 40% plus by the end of the calendar year. On the international air front, airlines are beginning to operate under the bubble agreement between countries. So far, we've seen approximately 10% capacity come back online. And this number continues to increase, literally on a weekly basis as new and new bubble agreements are entered into.

[Manish Hemrajani:]

Thanks, Dhruv. Holly, can you please open up the call for Q&A?

[Operator:]

Q - Unidentified Analyst A - Unidentified Company Speaker

[Operator:]

It appears there are currently no telephone questions. So I'd like to hand the call back to our host for any additional or closing remarks.

[Manish Hemrajani:]

Thanks, Holly. Thank you, everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speak to you in the near future. Dhruv any closing remarks?

[Dhruv Shringi:]

Just like to thank everyone again for taking out the time. I know it's been a while since we've last been heard. And now going forward, we will end up probably interacting on a quarterly basis. And if there are any follow-up questions that any of you have, please feel free to reach out to Manish. Thank you so much and stay safe.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.