Air India beats IndiGo in August occupancy

Air India recorded a 78.7% occupancy in its flights compared with IndiGo’s 76%

Tarun Shukla

First Published: Mon, Sep 16 2013. 11 49 PM IST

IndiGo still had the highest market share at 29.1% in August, Air India had 19.9%, Jet Airways 18.8%, SpiceJet 17.2%, GoAir 8.7% and Jet Konnect 6.9%.

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New Delhi: State-run Air India Ltd beat IndiGo, India’s biggest airline by passengers carried, in August occupancy rates, when overall traffic rose 20% from a year earlier.

Air India recorded a 78.7% occupancy in its flights compared with IndiGo’s 76%, data released by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed on Monday. GoAir had an occupancy rate of 79%, while SpiceJet Ltd was at 75.8%, Jet Airways (India) Ltd was at 74.9% and Jet Konnect at 73.9%.

To be sure, IndiGo, which is run by InterGlobe Aviation Pvt. Ltd, still had the highest market share at 29.1% in August, Air India had 19.9%, Jet Airways 18.8%, SpiceJet 17.2%, GoAir 8.7% and Jet Konnect 6.9%. As a group, Jet had a 25.1% market share.

At least 5.26 million passengers in India flew in August compared with 4.36 million a year ago. This is the first time passenger traffic growth has exceeded 10% in many months as cheaper airfares lured travellers.

Airlines cancelled 1% of their flights, according to aviation regulator DGCA, and 590 passenger related complaints were received and attended to according to rules.

Air India may have done better because its international flights may be bringing passengers to its local flights, said a foreign airline executive who declined to be named.

“Air India’s pieces of the network strategy are all coming together nicely with the launch and planned launch of new international services fed by their domestic flights at their Delhi hub,” the official said.

Also, when the airfare for low-cost airlines and full-service airlines is the same, people would tend to prefer the ones that offer meals, more leg room and in-flight entertainment services.

“Demand for LCC’s (low-cost carrier) seats in a market like India is met mostly by adding new fliers to the system by weaning them away from other forms of transport like buses, trains on the basis of offering affordable fares. That demand is seen approaching a limit as LCC’s are not able to keep fares low enough due to rising costs. On the other hand, Air India has the opportunity to add many new fliers to their domestic feeder network that earlier flew aboard to hubs like Singapore and Dubai take a connection,” the executive said.

The passenger traffic growth may not be sustainable, said an analyst.

“The growth is because of cheaper tickets. Cheaper tickets mean less yield. That means more losses. Load factors below 80% is something to worry about,” said Mohan Ranganathan, an aviation analyst and member of government-appointed air safety council. “There is a definite downturn in air traffic, which we will see in September numbers as airlines have hiked fares from Rs.6,000 to Rs.9,000 on average

 

 

 

ravindra kumar

pgdm 3rd sems