New Delhi: Air
India continues to hold on to a fifth of the domestic air travel market while
IndiGo remains the clear leader with more than one in four passengers
preferring to travel with it this November.
During 2012, IndiGo has
flown past Jet Airways to gain market leadership whereas in the second
half of the year, Air India has improved its market share and on-time
performance dramatically. Both have obviously taken away market share from
erstwhile leader Jet,
which has meanwhile withdrawn flights on some unprofitable routes, both on domestic as well as international sectors.
which has meanwhile withdrawn flights on some unprofitable routes, both on domestic as well as international sectors.
There could be further threat to Jet in case Kingfisher
Airlinesdoes return to the skies, as its promoter Vijay Mallya claims,
with limited operations in the next couple of months. Kingfisher has been
grounded since October one this year. Also, the domestic air travel market is
already shrinking and unless Jet has a long-term strategy up its sleeve, its
market share may well slide further in the coming months.
According
to data released by the Director General of Civil Aviation this evening,
domestic air travel market shrunk by almost four lakh passengers to 50.20 lakh
this November against 54.14 lakh passengers in the same month last year.
Between January and November this year, the number of domestic air passengers
declined by about 3% to 534.14 lakh against 550.32 in the same 11-month period
last year. As per DGCA data, IndiGo held 27.3% of the domestic market, AI held
20.7%, SpiceJet 19.5%, Jet Airways 18.3%, GoAir 7.4% and JetLite 6.9% market share.
In November, which was a festive month, all domestic airlines showed an improvement in seat factors which measures number of seats occupied against the total number of seats sold. Keeping up with its performance in all of 2012, IndiGo managed to fill more of its aircraft than any other airline at almost 8.5 seats for every 10 on offer. Air India came a close second at almost 8 seats but Jet lagged behind with just 7.4 seats in 10. So while IndiGo and AI could easily fill three fourths of each aircraft, Jet could not. SpiceJet, a low fare airline like InidGo, Jet’s own low fare subsidiary JetLite and GoAir all managed to fill three fourths of their aircraft. This clearly shows that among full service carriers, only Air India reached this benchmark.
In November, which was a festive month, all domestic airlines showed an improvement in seat factors which measures number of seats occupied against the total number of seats sold. Keeping up with its performance in all of 2012, IndiGo managed to fill more of its aircraft than any other airline at almost 8.5 seats for every 10 on offer. Air India came a close second at almost 8 seats but Jet lagged behind with just 7.4 seats in 10. So while IndiGo and AI could easily fill three fourths of each aircraft, Jet could not. SpiceJet, a low fare airline like InidGo, Jet’s own low fare subsidiary JetLite and GoAir all managed to fill three fourths of their aircraft. This clearly shows that among full service carriers, only Air India reached this benchmark.
But on the parameter of on-time performance, Air India slipped
badly in November when compared to October this year since it managed ontime
operations in less than 7 flights in 10 in November against more than 8 out of
10 in October.
Unless this issue is addressed urgently by the airline, it could
slip back to its previous records of less than 70% OTP and this could well make
it lose precious market share in the long run. IndiGo remained the most
trustworthy on OTP with more than 9 of its 10 flights landing and taking off on
time at the country’s six big airports even though it slipped a bit from the
October OTP of over 96%. Jet together with JetLite was almost 85% on time,
followed by SpiceJet at 82.2% and GoAir at 74.4%.
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