Gurgaon-based low-cost airline IndiGo maintained its leadership position in the domestic aviation sector by carrying 24.30 lakh passengers in September. As a consequence, the market share of the company during the period stood at 36.5%, the latest monthly data made available by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed.
Mumbai-based Jet Airways and national air carrier Air India came a distant second and third by flying 12.78 lakh and 10.59 lakh passengers, respectively, within the country. The market share of the two carriers in September stood at 19.2% and 15.9%, respectively. The market share of another low-cost carrier, SpiceJet, stood at 12.3%, while the same for Mumbai-based GoAir stood at 8.7% in September.
Overall, the number of passengers carried by airlines within the country increased by 20.10% y-o-y to 590.21 lakh, from 491.44 lakh passengers in the corresponding period last year. The increasing number of passengers in September is indicative of the trend where airlines are emerging as the preferred mode of transport.
As to the passenger load factor (PLF), which shows the capacity utilisation of an airline and is a key parameter of measuring profitability, SpiceJet tops the chart with 93% occupancy. The healthy performance by the airline is result of the high discounts on tickets offered by the airline on all the routes in which the it operates. Domestic airlines registered slight decrease in PLF due to end of the tourist season.
SpiceJet was followed by GoAir with 79.8% PLF, while IndiGo stood third with 79.4% PLF. “We continue to deliver strong performance despite September normally being a weaker quarter. Our on-time performance has also shown a significant improvement over the past few months. We are confident that our new winter schedule will witness the load factors and customer confidence trending in the right direction,” said Shilpa Bhatia, senior vice-president and head of sales and distribution, SpiceJet.
With respect to the on-time performance (OTP) of airlines in the domestic market computed from the four airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, full-service airline Vistara, IndiGo and Air Costa occupy the first three positions in the list with 94.2%, 91.2 and 90.4% flights operating on time, respectively.