Jet maintains lead in August market share

Ministry of civil aviation data released on Thursday showed the number of passengers carried by local carriers in August slipped 2.32% at 39.89 lakh fliers from 40.84 lakh in July.

However on a year-on-year basis, it was up 7.86% last month from 36.76 lakh fliers last year.

Analysts and industry experts said the drop in the passenger traffic was due to lean season.

In terms of market share, Goyal’s airlines - Jet Airways and Jetlite - and Kingfisher maintained their positions at first and second spots with 27% and 20% share respectively.

Air India widened the gap between itself and IndiGo in domestic operations by usurping one percentage point more share at 18.3% even as IndiGo lost five basis points at 16.4%.

The share of budget carrier Spicejet, which recently had management change, dropped to 12.6% from 13.2% while GoAir’s was up to 5.7% from 5.6%.

Seat factors of Air India, Kingfisher Airlines and GoAir were up in August at 65.5%, 80.9% and 72% from 62.5%, 76.6% and 71.3%, respectively.

On the other hand, Jet, Jetlite, Spicejet and IndiGo saw their seat factors come down at 70.4%, 73.2%, 70.3% amd 74.5% from 73.8%, 76.6%, 76.8% and 80.2%.

“August observed comparatively lower seat factor primarily due to lean season,” said the statement issued by ministry. The overall cancellation rate of airlines was 3.1%.