Air travel clocks 12% growth

State-owned airlines lose more market share.

The Indian aviation sector is on an upswing with the domestic air travellers growing a massive 12.15 per cent in 2003-04 to 15.7 million from 14 million in the 2002-03.

The growth is much higher than the 8.5 per cent growth the passenger traffic saw in 2002-03, as per the latest data released by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Airline industry attributes this growth to the opening up of the skies and the launch of a number of low-cost carriers. It is also interesting to note that the upward trend in travellers is expected to continue this year and it will grow over 20 per cent in 2004-05.

Initial analysis by the civil aviation ministry points out that the aviation sector grew at about 25 per cent in the past six months.

"Airlines have been pushing in additional capacity. We have also seen the prices falling considerably. The growth is largely attributed to the deregulation of the market," said Kapil Kaul, chief executive officer, Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation.

However, the top five airports continue to handle the major chunk of passenger traffic. The industry is of the view that the share of smaller airports in the passenger traffic will grow once these airports are modernised.

"The top airports continue to handle more than 70 per cent of the traffic," said a ministry official.

While the national carriers flew 6.7 million passengers, the private airlines carried 9 million passengers. With this, the private carriers have bettered their market share to 56.4 per cent from 54.3 per cent in 2003-04. The market share of the state-run carriers came down to 42.7 per cent in 2003-04 from 44 per cent in the previous year.

During 2003-04, the domestic carriers have shown an increase in passenger load, despite the launch of new airlines and the additional capacity deployed by all the carriers. The overall passenger load in the domestic sector in 2003-04 grew to 58.4 per cent from 56.3 per cent in 2002-03.

The DGCA data show that at the end of March 31, 2004, the total fleet size of all the scheduled airlines stood at 158 aircraft, up from 138 aircraft during the same period in the previous year.

In the year 2003-04, Indian Airlines reported an operating profit of Rs 125.1 crore, while Air-India reported an operating loss of Rs 115.5 crore.

In the private sector, Jet Airways reported an operating profit of Rs 355 crore. Similarly, Sahara Airlines, reported an operating profit of Rs 81.17 crore for 2003-04.

The number of international passengers carried per day by foreign carriers stood at 28,246, while the daily international cargo carried by foreign carriers stood at 1,447 tonnes during 2003-04.