The crisis in the global economy has taken its toll on the Indian airline industry with the overall passenger traffic in January-February this year falling by almost 8 lakh over the year-ago period.
All airlines put together flew 67.61 lakh passengers in January-February this year compared to 75.56 lakh last year, the official traffic data released today showed.
As per the world airports report prepared by Airports Council International (ACI), the growth rate of global air traffic in January fell by six per cent year-on-year while that of air freight declined by "a frightening 27 per cent".
Meanwhile, ACI Director (Economics) Andreas Schimm has warned that "we must brace ourselves for further turbulent times".
The ACI, however, said "modest growth" was experienced at Southeast and East Asian aviation markets, including China.
However, in the Indian domestic arena, the picture was a repeat of last month, as passenger traffic grew marginally from 33.26 lakh in January to 33.36 lakh, even as the global trend showed a decline. The figure was 33.23 lakh in December 2008, according to official figures.
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Among domestic carriers, Kingfisher Airlines and its low-cost Kingfisher Red jointly beat their private counterpart Jet Airways-JetLite by carrying the highest number of passengers in February.
The Kingfisher combine carried 9.04 lakh passengers in February, compared with 8.46 lakh of Jet Airways-JetLite. While Air India (Domestic) carried 5.74 lakh passengers.
In January, Kingfisher combine had flown 9.19 lakh and Jet combine carried 8.37 lakh passengers. Air India had carried 5.55 lakh passengers on its domestic route network in January.
Among the low-cost carriers, IndiGo topped the chart carrying 4.41 lakh passengers, closely followed by 4.13 lakh flown by SpiceJet. JetLite alone carried 2.49 lakh, while GoAir and Paramount trailed with 0.84 lakh and 0.61 lakh respectively, the figures showed.
The percentage share of the carriers for February was led by Kingfisher combine recording 27.1 per cent followed by Jet Airways 17.9 per cent, Air India (Domestic) 17.2 per cent, IndiGo 13.2 per cent, SpiceJet 12.4 per cent, JetLite 7.5 per cent, GoAir 2.5 per cent and Paramount 1.8 per cent.
The no-frill carriers ruled the roost in terms of seat factors with IndiGo registering the highest at 82 per cent, followed by premium-service carrier Paramount at 81.6 per cent, SpiceJet with 78.5 per cent, JetLite with 74.2 per cent, Kingfisher combine 74.3 per cent, Jet Airways 68.7 per cent, Air India (Domestic) 66.3 per cent and GoAir at 66 per cent.