Air India market share slips to fifth slot

NEW DELHI: The month of May saw three airlines - Jet Airways, Kingfisher and IndiGo - fly a record one million passengers each, whereas national carrier Air India slipped to the fifth position in terms of market share.

Air traffic data for May, released by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), shows that the six Indian airlines together have flown almost 25 million passengers, 17.6% more than the same month last year.

While Jet Airways and its low-cost subsidiary JetLite together held on to the largest pie in the aviation market at 26.1%, Kingfisher and IndiGo have 20% and 19.9% market share, respectively. SpiceJet has overtaken Air India with 14

The national carrier's market share declined to 13.2% in May, followed by GoAir, which registered a 6.6% share in the market. Air India's load factor, or occupancy, has also been the lowest in May at 78.1%, in comparison with other air carriers. Low-cost carrier IndiGo had the highest seat factor at 89.4%, while Kingfisher and GoAir trailed close behind with 88.4% and 87% occupancy levels, respectively.

While all other airlines had a cancellation rate of below 1%, Air India had a cancellation rate of a whopping 18%.

About 600 Air India pilots had called for a flash strike on April 26 that ended in the first week of May after bleeding the airline 300 crore in revenues.

The data attributes 75% of cancellations to operational reasons. IndiGo did not cancel any flight in May.