IndiGo holds 17th AGM, co-founder Rakesh Gangwal attends: Key takeaways

India's largest airline IndiGo today held its 17th annual general meeting. The AGM comes at a time when the global aviation sector is reeling under the COVID-induced stress and is looking at ways to survive the pandemic.

1. The annual general meeting of 2019-20 was held on an online platform.

2. The online meeting was attended by both Co-founders, Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal. In the midst of a legal tussle between the two promoters, Gangwal did not attend the AGM in Aug 2019 and EGM in Jan 2020. In fact, independent director Dr Anupam Khanna also did not attend the AGM and EGM but was present today for today's virtual AGM.

It is important to note here that Gangwal and Dr Khanna had raised concerns about the lack of corporate governance and questioned related-party transactions taking place between IndiGo and InterGlobe Enterprises of Rahul Bhatia.

3. The company said that it sees a 50:50 chance for QIP to be implemented. The company is primarily focussed on increasing sales revenue and fund-raising via QIP is currently an option but not the only way.

4. The airline seemed optimistic about the current demand scenario in the domestic market. As per the company's Chief Executive Officer Rono Dutta, the situation is improving and the daily cash burn has also reduced from Rs 40 crore a day when Operations resumed on May 25 to around Rs 30 crore now.

5. The company wants to operate more aircraft from its fleet but the restrictions imposed by the various state governments on aircraft movement, especially at airports like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, are acting as a hurdle. Nonetheless, IndiGo is utilising up to 35 percent of its fleet and aims to increase the number of aircraft in operation.  As of June 30, IndiGo had  274 aircraft in its fleet.

6. As of now, the airline does not have any plans for wide-body aircraft operations.

7. The AGM ended quickly within 45 minutes. Several people who attended the AGM called it "peaceful" as compared to the last year's AGM which witnessed some ruckus by the participating public shareholders.