With the reduction in hourly charter prices, cheaper private aircraft, corporate audience shifting towards private jets and current data from director general of civil aviation, it has been estimated that by 2014, it will cost just the same to travel in private plane and a commercial scheduled airline, according to a research done by Airnetz Aviation. This will also equalise the number of passengers traveling by private planes and scheduled airlines.
According to the research, passenger traffic over schedule airlines increased 11% to 40.25 million passengers in 2008 from 35.79 million passengers in 2007. The same growth was seen in 2007 by 42%. Non-schedule operators in the country increased 50% to 99 in 2008 from 66 in 2007.
Private aircraft in the country increased 22% to 275 in 2008 from 220 in 2007. Similarly, passengers carried by non-schedule operators increased nearly 70% to 6,04,368 in 2008 from 3,55,511 in 2007. The percentage of passengers carried by non-schedule operators as to schedule airline carriers increased to 1.5% in 2008 from 0.9% in 2007.
The cost for a five-seater new private jet has come down 90% from Rs 80 crore way back in 2001 to Rs 8 crore. Minimum hourly charter cost for a five-seater private air taxi has come down to Rs 55,000. That also implies that per hour-per person charter cost for air tax has come down to Rs 11,000, 3.5 times more than a commercial airline. A schedule airline in 2008 cost on an average Rs 3,000 a hour per person.
