One in four airline seats empty in February

Bangalore, Mumbai: 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.
16/03/10 Praveena Sharma & Ramiya Bhas/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2010