Blue Dart net up nearly 4x; plans to expand fleet

Mumbai: Blue Dart is readying itself for its next round of expansion, evaluating bigger aircraft than it has ever had in its fleet, increasing charter operations to China and Vietnam, and building gateways in smaller towns.

The express logistics company currently has a fleet of eight freighter planes — six Boeing 757s, which will be phased out in a few years, and two Boeing 737-800s.

It will add two 737-800s priced at Rs 360 crore by the end of this year, said a person in the know. It is also looking at Boeing 767s which will increase the tonnage per aircraft by 60%, he added.

The company, which has operational bases or gateways in seven cities in India, is for the first time looking to set up such facilities in smaller cities like Guwahati, Coimbatore and Kochi to operate scheduled air cargo services there.

“It has to make business sense. There should be cargo coming in and originating from the cities enough to fill the freighters. The company can’t fly empty planes,” the person added.

Blue Dart said on Wednesday its net profit jumped close to four times to Rs 119 crore in the April-June quarter on a robust operating performance. Revenue from operations rose nearly 50% to Rs 1,293 crore.

Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) for the quarter was Rs 201 crore, up 125% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Ebitda margin was 15.5%.

“Life in the pandemic has leap-frogged. We are out of the pandemic now. It is a mix -- better realisation, yield improvement, digitisation, service quality and cost management,” managing director Balfour Manuel told ET.

“The company witnessed healthy volume growth during the quarter and carried 77.08 million shipments (last year 51.22 million shipments) comprising 278,393 tonnes (last year 184,431 tonnes),” it said.

The company is on expansion mode and will hire more manpower, Manuel said, but didn’t provide details.