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ShareBangalore: Domestic passenger traffic continued its upward flight in September as scheduled airlines carried 8.37 lakh, or 30.8%, more fliers compared with the same month last year.
This is the fourth consecutive month when air traffic was higher than last year, indicating recovery of demand in the airline market.
Figures released by the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) on Thursday indicated passengers were returning to air travel. Total number of passengers flown by local carriers in September jumped to 35.56 lakh against 27.19 lakh in the same period last year.
The year-on-year (yoy) growth in passenger numbers for the first nine months of this year also increased 97 basis points (bps) to 319.79 lakh from 316.71 lakh last year.
Ankur Bhatia, managing director of Amadeus, said while low fares did give flight to passenger traffic in September, it was economic recovery and flush of liquidity that gave passenger numbers a bigger boost.
"It's not just fares, the overall improvement in economic and liquidity conditions in the market was spurring growth in domestic air travel. I expect traffic in this month (October), when the fares have firmed up considerably, to be higher," he said.
Since September is the leanest month of the year, there was a marginal drop of 3% in the number of fliers. Passenger traffic fell to 35.1 lakh from 36.3 lakh in August.
However, Nacil, which operates the state-owned carrier Air India, saw an improvement in seat factor and market share in September compared with in August, despite a five-day strike by executive pilots.
Nacil's market share increased by 90 bps to 17.5% from 16.6% and seat factor improved by 7.7 percentage points to 67.5% from 59.8%.
Jitendra Bhargava, executive director - corporate communication - Air India, said induction of new aircraft and focus on improving the airline's on-time-performance (OTP) helped the carrier garner a higher market share. Nacil's OTP was 78%.
Sources said the airline gained from the one-week strike by Jet Airways' pilots and marketing schemes, which offered attractive fares to corporate travellers.
Air India's rival in the full-service carrier (FSC) space Kingfisher Airlines also bettered its market share and seat factor. The Vijay Mallya-owned career improved its market share by 70 bps to 23.3% from 22.6% and seat factor by 6.7 percentage points to 75.4% from 68.7%.
Naresh Goyal's Jet Airways and JetLite together were able to maintain their leadership, despite a drop of 2.9 percentage points in their market share to 23.5% in September from 26.4% in August. The seat factors of Jet and JetLite were also down to 69.8% and 71.4% from 70% and 72.9%, respectively.
All budget airlines except JetLite increased their market share. SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir improved their share of passenger traffic to 13.2%, 14.3% and 5.8%, respectively.
The overall OTP of airlines fell in September to 82.9% from 83.6% in August as cancellations increased to 6.6% from 2.2% during the same period last year.
