SpiceJet shares fell 4% in intraday trading on Tuesday after the airline placed 80 pilots on unpaid leave for three months in an effort to cut costs.

In a high volume trade involving over 4.07 lakh shares on the BSE at 11:30 AM, the stock fell 3.67% to Rs 42.00. Meanwhile, the BSE index was down 100.78 points, or 0.17%, to 59,618.96.

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The shares of SpiceJet have underperformed the sector by -4.09% and touched an intraday low of Rs 41.85 (-4.01%).

Conversely, among other airline equities, Jet Airways rose 4% to Rs 101. IndiGo increased by 0.3% to Rs 1,914.

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Following the July 27 directive of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the aftermath of mishaps, SpiceJet has been reporting losses for the past four years and is running fewer than 50% of flights (total of 90-odd aircraft).

In a statement, SpiceJet said it had 2019 inducted more than 30 aircraft following the grounding of the B737 MAX aircraft. “The airline had continued with its planned pilot induction programme with the hope that the MAX would be back in service soon. However, the prolonged grounding of the MAX fleet resulted in a large number of excess pilots at SpiceJet,” it noted.

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Ajay Singh promoted Swiss bank Credit Suisse and SpiceJet to resolve their prolonged legal issue outside of court earlier in August 2022. This resulted in SpiceJet withdrawing its appeal against a Madras High Court judgement that may have resulted in the low-cost airline’s collapse.

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SpiceJet recorded a net loss of Rs 78.83 crore for the quarter that ended June 2022, compared to a loss of Rs 72.91 crore in the year-ago quarter. Despite a 95% increase in total income to Rs 247.84 crore from Rs 126.59 crore in the prior comparable period.