Air India slipped to the fifth position in May, carrying a little over 13 per cent of all passengers according to the latest data released by the Director General of Civil Aviation. While all other domestic airlines made merry in the peak travel season, Air India’s services were hit because of the pilots’ strike.
Domestic traffic grew 14.8 per cent in May, compared to the same period last year. Domestic traffic crossed 540,000 in the month, and the total number of passengers flown was 549,200.
Jet Airways along with its low-cost arm JetLite maintained its lead as the largest carrier, with 26.1 per cent market share. IndiGo carried 19.9 per cent passengers, a fraction less than the 20 per cent flown by Kingfisher. SpiceJet overtook Air India, transporting 14.2 per cent of domestic travellers. Air India had a market share of 15.4 per cent in April, which fell to 13.2 per cent in May. GoAir’s share was 6.6 per cent. Except Air India, all other airlines reported a rise in market share.
Jet Airways, Kingfisher and IndiGo — carried over 100,000 passengers.
Load factor of all the airlines increased over April since it was a peak travel season. Loads increased 20 per cent despite a rise in ticket prices.
The Gurgaon-based carrier could soon overtake Kingfisher as the number two airline in the domestic market.
More From This Section
In May, SpiceJet overtook Air India, transporting 14.2 per cent of domestic travellers. Air India had a market share of 15.4 per cent in April, which fell to 13.2 per cent in May. GoAir's share was 6.6 per cent. Except Air India all other airlines reported a rise in market share. DGCA has released market share of all the airlines but has not given the actual figure of passengers flown by them.
IndiGo had the highest seat factor (89.4 %) among all the airlines. All the other airlines reported seat factor between 79 and 89 per cent. IndiGo again had zero per cent flight cancellation while 18 per cent of AI flights were cancelled.
There are twin reasons for the private airlines recording a growth in passengers. Air India carried almost 15 per cent of the total domestic passengers and many of them were transferred to private airlines because of flight disruptions. Additionally, almost all airlines had added flights in summer. Kingfisher Airlines has been restoring flights or launching new ones as almost all of its 13 grounded planes are back in operation. Others, including Jet Airways and SpiceJet, too, added flights.
"Our services were affected in May. The pilots' strike got over on May 7 and it took another four-five days for operations to normalise. Effectively, we lost almost half the month,'' an Air India executive said.
Towards the end of the month, the government carrier faced crisis with oil companies refusing additional credit. It has now introduced an unlimited travel scheme to regain lost market share and attract passengers as it is a lean season. Under the scheme passengers can pay Rs 30,000 or Rs 50,000 for 10 day economy and business class pass.