One in four airline seats empty in February

Lean season and firmer airfares saw domestic air passenger numbers slipping for the second month in a row in February.

According to ministry of civil aviation data released on Monday, local carriers flew 5.49% or 2.24 lakh fewer passengers at 38.63 lakh last month compared with 40.87 lakh in January.

Despite the lean season, seat factors of all airlines were high at mid-70% or 80%, similar to January levels.

This indicates that on an average only one out of every four seats of the domestic carriers was empty in February.

The number of fliers had dipped 8.9% in January, too, compared with December, when airlines had carried 44.87 lakh passengers.

All airlines except JetLite, the low-cost subsidiary of Jet Airways, carried lesser passengers in February compared with January.
One of the reasons for this is February has 28 days compared with 31 days in January.

According to a senior executive ofa low-cost airline, who did not want to be named, JetLite’s passenger numbers in February seems higher as it had very high cancellation rates in January due to fog.

Industry experts are not viewing these seasonal drops as a matter of concern or the end airline sector’s revival story that began in June last year.

Analysts said robust growth will return as carriers fly into in the peak season.

“This drop in passenger numbers is due to the lean season,” said an analyst with Centrum Broking, who did not want to be named.

Also, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, February’s air passenger traffic was up 15.7% or 5.27 lakh compared with the same month last year, when airlines had flown 33.36 lakh passengers.

Last year in February, passenger numbers has fallen 6.86% compared with 2008 data.

In January, year on year growth was higher at 23%.

Industry experts said while numbers usually dip in February, this year it has been better.

“When you look at the (passenger) numbers (in February), it’s almost like those witnessed in the peak season. And, this improvement is because airlines have been carrying at least 7% more passengers, on a daily basis, compared with last year,” said another analyst, who did not want to be named.

Naresh Goyal-owned Jet Airways and JetLite maintained lead with a collective market share of 26.1%.

Both expanded their pie at 18.8% and 7.3% in February from 18.4% and 6.8% in January.

Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines also extended its footprint witha 22.7% share, up from 22.2%. The other airlines whose spoils were up is GoAir at 5.5%, a basis point up from 5.4%.

State-owned National Aviation Company of India Ltd’s share tumbled to 17.2% from 18%.

Budget carriers SpiceJet and IndiGo also saw their pie shrink from 12.2% and 15.3% to 12% and 14.9%, respectively.
All-business-class airline Paramount Airways’ share also eroded to 1.8% from 1.6%.