New Delhi, June 11 (pti): Low-cost carrier SpiceJet today said it could lose up to Rs 100 crore in the current fiscal, up from Rs 70 crore in 2007-08.

SpiceJet ceo Sidhant Sharma said the carrier had also pushed the break even point by one year to March 2010 from March 2009 earlier.

“The whole industry is facing huge losses because of high atf prices and we expect our losses to be around Rs 80-100 crore this financial year,” Sharma said after a meeting between the ceos of various carriers and civil aviation minister Praful Patel.

The Center for Asia-Pacific Aviation (Capa) had earlier projected a collective loss of $2 billion for airlines in India.

Sharma said the airline would also “reduce its daily flights to just about 100 per day down from 117 at present” to curtail the losses. “We will cut flights in those sectors which have not been giving us good returns such as Chennai-Bangalore, Hyderabad-Chennai and Jaipur-Ahmedabad,” he said.

Explaining the rationale of cutting down on short-haul flights, Sharma said the cuts would “increase the load factor by 2-3 per cent besides yielding Rs 70 more per passenger”.

Sharma said while the airline had returned one aircraft on the completion of its lease date in mid-May, it would be sending back one more soon. It has got two additional aircraft during the same period.