Saturday, 27 June 2026

The 42% sequential profit drop to ₹8.34 crore traces less to demand than to December's stricter Flight Duty Time Limitation norms, which scrambled domestic air schedules and deferred an estimated ₹48 crore of air transaction value plus much of the high-margin MICE pipeline into later quarters. Revenue still rose 9% YoY to ₹256.8 crore and adjusted EBITDA grew 41%, beating guidance, with a one-time labour-code charge also clipping reported PAT.

Reframes the OTA commission as a subsidy hotels never saw: for three decades intermediaries absorbed the cost of all the looking that never converted, charging only on the booking that landed, and AI agents running thousands of searches per session turn that buried cost into a standing bill the moment a hotel exposes rates directly. Cites airlines' NDC shift — taking back content control while inheriting the cost of being shopped — as the precedent hotels are now repeating.