Airlines see revival signs as January traffic rises 23 pc

NEW DELHI: In an encouraging development for the harried aviation market, domestic passenger traffic increased by a phenomenal 23% last month over the same period last year, indicating a revival of the industry.

Passengers carried by all airlines in January stood at 41.41 lakh, compared with 33.76 lakh in 2009, registering a growth of 22.7%, official air traffic figures released on Friday said. However, the January figures are lower than 44.87 lakh passengers carried in December.

Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite jointly led the way in the reporting month carrying 10.28 lakh passengers, followed by Kingfisher Airlines with 9.08 lakh and Air India (domestic) 7.34 lakh, according to the figures.
Among the no-frills carriers, IndiGo, like before, is the leader with 6.25 lakh, followed by SpiceJet with 5 lakh, GoAir 2.20 lakh and the all-business class Paramount Airways carrying 0.72 lakh.

The Jet-JetLite combine cornered one-fourth (25.4% share) of the total domestic market, followed by Kingfisher at 22.2%, Air India at 18%, IndiGo at 15.3%, SpiceJet at 12.2%, GoAir 5.4% and Paramount 1.8%.

Though the lowest in market-share ranking, Paramount has the highest seat factor or maximum seat occupancy at 87.8% in January, according to official figures.

The Chennai-based full-business class airline, but operating in the no-frills category, is followed by IndiGo with 83.2% seat factor, SpiceJet with 82.1%, GoAir 77.1%, JetLite 74.9%, Kingfisher 76.4%, Jet Airways 73.7% and the state-owned Air India at 73.6%.

The seat factor figures clearly indicate travellers preference for flying on the no-frill carriers rather than the full-service ones. In analysing the on-time performance of these carriers, it can be noted that the cancellation of flights, which seriously hamper travel plans, peaked at 5.7% in January.

However, considering the highly-inclement weather of January, when the whole of the northern region was enveloped in thick fog for weeks, it could be concluded that more flight cancellations were not due to airlines but external factors.

While 67% of cancellations were due to inclement weather conditions, cancellations by airlines due to commercial and other considerations stood at 24.5% and the remaining ones caused by technical reasons.

The cancellation rate of Jet and JetLite were the highest at 12.6% and 9.2% respectively, while the lowest rates of 2.2% and 2.5% were registered by IndiGo and Air India. Kingfisher’s cancellation rate was also on the higher side at 5.8%.