Air Traffic in India Stays Flat

Monday, 1st July 2013 at 05:32am

Though India's commercial aviation industry is showing some progress, its domestic passenger traffic showed sign of slight improvement with a modest growth of less than one percent during this year's first five months, growing two lakh over the same period last year.

The budget leader, Indigo, continued its dominance in the domestic market, capturing 30% of the market for the month of May. Jet Airways and its low-cost subsidiary, JetLite, trailed behind with a combined captive market of 22.5%.

SpiceJet, another low-cost airline, came in third position in the domestic market share cornering 20% while the state-owned Air India followed closely in 4th position with 19.1 percent. GoAir came in the fifth position with a 9% market share.

Overall, all Indian carriers carried a total of 57.10 lakh for the month of May compared to the same period last year with 54.48 lakh.

For the first five months of this year, domestic passenger traffic carried by these airlines stood at 259.98 lakh. The figure represents an almost negligible 0.74% increase over the same period last year which was 258.08 lakh.

IndiGo was the best performing airline in the country overall from January to May this year, posting a passenger load factor (PLF) of 90 percent. GoAir emerged as the second best performing local carrier with its 86 percent PLF. Passenger load factor or PLF is an industry standard used to measure the passenger carrying capacity of an airline, which, in turn, based on the total seats actually sold.

The flag carrier, Air India, posted a decent 82 percent PLF to become the country's third best performing airline during the period. Its closest full-service rival, Jet Airways, managed to get a 75% PLF to come in the last position. SpiceJet, on the other hand, was able to get 80 percent PLF, ahead of Jet Airways.

By: Pete Lee.