IndiGo beats big daddies like Jet Airways to remain in top league

The number of passengers ferried by domestic carriers climbed 29 per cent to 67.45 lakh in July as discounts and fall in fuel prices made airfares more affordable.

While no-frills carrier IndiGo continued to dominate with the highest market share of 35.8 per cent, SpiceJet remained on top in terms of passenger load factor that touched 93.4 per cent in July, according to latest official data.

Aviation regulator DGCA today said passenger load factor declined in July compared with June mainly on account of tourist season coming to an end.

Last month, local carriers ferried 67.45 lakh passengers, a growth of 29.3 per cent compared with 52.16 lakh passengers seen in July last year.

Many carriers had come out with discounts in July and fuel prices had also declined. Both these factors to some extent helped in reducing airfares. In June, local airlines carried 66.01 lakh people.

The cumulative figures are for Air India and nine other private carriers, including Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo.

As many as 24.17 lakh people travelled in IndiGo last month, the highest for any carrier.

Air India ferried 10.94 lakh while Jet Airways and Jet Lite together carried 15.37 lakh people during the same period.

In terms of passenger load factor or occupancy rate of seats, SpiceJet continued to be on top at 93.4 per cent, while rival IndiGo clocked 78.4 per cent in July.

Compared with June, SpiceJet saw a marginal improvement from 93.2 per cent whereas IndiGo witnessed a decline from 86.6 per cent.

Air India's passenger load factor rose to 77.8 per cent last month from 73.5 per cent seen in June.

Last month, Jet Airways' passenger load factor touched 81 per cent, Jet Lite (80.1 per cent), Go Air (81.2 per cent), Vistara (60.3 per cent), Air Asia (80.2 per cent), Air Costa (81.7 per cent) and Air Pegasus (71.5 per cent).

"The passenger load factor in the month of July 2015 has shown declining trend compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season," DGCA said.

During the January-July period, passenger growth jumped 21.13 per cent to 455.78 lakh.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Jul 2015 were 455.78 lakh as against 376.28 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 21.13 per cent," DGCA said. The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for July stood at 0.53 per cent with little over 47 per cent instances caused due to technical issues.

The maximum cancellation was by Air Costa (4.67 per cent) while the least was by IndiGo at 0.11 per cent.

Air Pegasus' stood at 2.50 per cent, Air India (1.12 per cent), Jet Airways (0.52 per cent), SpiceJet (0.49 per cent), Go Air (0.46 per cent), Vistara (0.37 per cent), Air Asia (0.30 per cent) and Jet Lite (0.22 per cent). 

Photograph: Reuters