At 11.25 lakh passengers, Air India flew less than half the number that Indigo did in August. The low-cost airline stayed the market leader carrying 23.85 lakh passengers and commanding a market share of 35.3%, Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data showed. Jet Airways flew 13.39 lakh passengers with a market share of 19.8% while Air India’s share was just 16.6%. SpiceJet and GoAir followed with market shares of 12.3% and 8.1% respectively.
Overall, the number of passengers carried by airlines within the country increased by 20.84% y-o-y to 523.55 lakh from 433.24 lakh in the corresponding period last year.
On the passenger load factor (PLF), which shows the capacity utilisation of an airline and a key parameter of measuring profitability, SpiceJet tops the chart with 92.1% occupancy, on the back of a low fleet and high advance discount selling of tickets. Domestic airlines registered slight decrease in PLF due to the end of the tourist season.
SpiceJet was followed by Jet Airways with 80.8% PLF while Air India stood third with 79.3% PLF. Along with load factors in the 90% for the past four months, Spice Jet has also been making tremendous strides in its on-time performance, with OTP in second half of August and in the month of September regularly hitting over 90%, and with a cancellation rate of less than 1%, Sanjiv Kapoor, chief operating officer, SpiceJet said in a statement.
With respect to the On Time Performance (OTP) of airline in the domestic market computed from four airports of Delhi, Mumbai Hyderabad and Bangalore, full service airline Vistara, Air Costa and Air Pegasus occupies the first three positions in the list with 95.4%, 93.4 and 91.9% flights operating on time, respectively.
