Statistics Show Proof Of India's Thriving Airline Industry

Thursday, 2nd July 2015 at 02:59am

The year 2009 can be touted as India's glory days in the airline industry, with 9 airlines operating to serve its growing market. However, as the years progressed some of these airlines, including Paramount and Kingfisher stopped operating and had to close down. Kingfisher was heavy in debt and was cash strapped. Paramount on the other hand had serious legal issues and was also heavily indebted.

Of late however, it appears that India's airline industry is again robust luring new players including AirAsia India, Air Costa, and Vistara.

At present, IndiGo is on top of the game, capturing 40% of the domestic market. Jet Airways and Air India trail behind with about 20% and 16% market share respectively. For now, the 3 newbies will have to be content with capturing a smaller fraction of the market.

Statistics from Airports Authority of India (AAI) show that air travel in the country went up by 20% for the first four months of 2015 and cheap fuel helped fan this growth. This rapid growth rate was experienced back in 2011.

On a global scale, growth rates for air travel was slower at 8 to 10%, though still relatively healthy.

Meanwhile, records show that Delhi Airport topped the list of airports with the most visitors handled. For the one-year period ending March 2015, Delhi had more than 40 million visitors using the airport. This is a first for India.

Apart from Delhi, Mumbai has also handled a huge number of visitors, having 37 million passengers for the same period ending March this year.

Overall, for the period April 2014 to March 2015, India has posted a more than 12 per cent increase from the previous year's figures as influx of visitors using its airports rose to a hefty 190 million.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad also reported satisfactory figures as passengers handled rose by 20 per cent. Bengaluru on the other hand reported visitor growth rates of close to 20%, this time surpassing Chennai.

Around 6 of India's airports have reported growths in the number of visitors handled at a rate faster than the nationwide average.

In terms of international airline services to and from airports in the country, Jet Airways is still on top. It is noteworthy that 4 international Indian air carriers are among those in the top 10 based on seat capacity.

By: Pete Lee.