Diwali and peak holiday season did not bring cheer for airlines as domestic air traffic fell 7.8% in November.
Domestic airlines flew 5.02 million passengers last month as against 5.4 million in November 2011. This is the third consecutive weak month for the airlines. In September and October traffic was down 10% and 15% respectively. For a ten month period till November traffic is down 2.94%. A 20-30% increase in air tickets due to higher fuel surcharges and taxes at Delhi are being cited as the reasons for fewer air passengers.
For the past few months air traffic in India is sliding after registering 16% growth in 2011 and analysts and portals fear that December too will see 5-8% fall. Sharat Dhall, chief operating officer of Yatra.com recently told this paper that demand for air travel within country remained sluggish. "October and November were negative for air travel. December looks flat. We are not very bullish and after the last two months we are not expecting much growth in air travel,'' he said.
Amongst the airlines Air India continued gaining market share. Infact SpiceJet and Air India have flew more passengers than Jet Airways (standalone) in November. However Jet Airways along with JetLite carry more passengers than Air India and take the second slot. Kingfisher's operations are shut since October and its traffic has now been redistributed amongst all airlines. The biggest gainer has been Air India which has seen a rise in share from 16.2% in May to over 20% now.
IndiGo continues to lead the airlines with 27.3% share followed by Jet Airways plus JetLite account for 25.2%. Air India share was 20.7 and SpiceJet was at 19.5%. Go Air share was 7.5%.