Indian claims March figures propel it to second spot in market share

National carrier Indian today claimed that it has wrested the number two position from low-cost carrier Air Deccan with a market share of 21.9 per cent in March this year.

It now claims to be trailing just behind the market leader Jet Airways, which had a market share of 22.9 per cent during the month, while Air Deccan dropped to the third position with a market share of 17 per cent.

According to a statement released today by Indian, it carried 23,740 passengers during March 2007, up 27.5 per cent from 18,620 in March 2006. In February 2007, Indian had carried 23,160 passengers.

Indian claimed that it's market share improved by 2.5 per cent between February and March and that it was the only airline whose market shares increased during the period.

It also said that its seat occupancy on domestic flights of 71.8 per cent in March 07 was also higher than the industry average of 69.5 per cent.

Indian, which was earlier known as Indian Airlines, was the country's leading domestic carrier till it was replaced by the Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways.

Last year, it lost the second slot to no-frills carrier Air Deccan, which had attracted a lot of customers through its aggressive pricing strategy.

When contacted, Air Deccan Managing Director G. R Gopinath said that he was not sure about his company's March figures. "That may be possible as we lost a lot of passengers when we migrated to a new ticket reservation. The system did not work for over fifteen days in March 2007," said Gopinath.

Air Deccan, which was using a reservation system powered by Interglobe, which runs budget airline IndiGo, recently migrated to a new system run by Radix.