Passengers ignore boarding call

NEW DELHI: Peak travel season and a drop in air fares have failed to stem a decline in the growth of the domestic air travel industry for the eleventh straight month, with full-service carriers Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines taking the biggest hit. April alone saw a 15% dip in the number of passengers flown by Indian carriers, according to data released by the regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

While passenger numbers for Delhi-based low-cost airline IndiGo grew marginally in April, they declined marginally for close rival SpiceJet. Government-owned Air India managed to hold on to its previous year���s number, thanks to a sharp cut in fares. DGCA data show that domestic carriers flew 3.31 million passengers in April as against 3.89 million in the corresponding month last year.

Seat factor or average passengers per available seat kilometre of all carriers, except IndiGo and Paramount Airlines, fell in April. ���Jet-JetLite combine and Kingfisher Airlines saw a total fall of 5.81 lakhs passengers on year-on-year basis. This could be attributed to significant capacity reduction by Jet Airways and Kingfisher, but also reflects the state of the full-service carriers (FSC) model. Most of the traffic decline is attributed to drop in passengers for Kingfisher and the Jet Airways Group,��� Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) India head Kapil Kaul said.

Consultancy KPMG���s head of transport advisory services Raajeev Batra, however, is hopeful that full-service carriers would get back passengers once the economy turns around. But the market share of low-cost airlines would continue to grow simultaneously, he added.

Jet Airways, which already operates JetLite ��� formerly Air Sahara ��� last week started a new budget service called Jet Airways Konnect. Liquor baron Vijay Mallya���s Kingfisher is also pushing at least 25 flights on to Kingfisher Red, its low-cost service.

Interestingly, Mr Mallya has hitherto been sceptical about the relevance of low-cost airlines in India.
In a bid to contain losses, both Jet and Kingfisher have significantly cut fleet size and reduced flights on domestic routes. The losses of domestic airline industry is estimated at about Rs 10,000 crore in 2008-09.