Thursday, March 21, 2019

Passenger growth story hits air pocket, dips to 53-month low

Mumbai: Domestic air passenger growth has lost the high double-digit momentum seen till recently, with a growth of 5.62% in February — a 53-month low — with airlines flying 11.34 million passengers compared to 10.74 million, according to DGCA data released on Wednesday.

The last time such a low growth was reported was in July 2014 when incremental traffic grew 7.19%, while in August 2014, the same was at 8%. Since September 2014, the market has been clipping at double-digits which lasted till December 2018. In January 2019, the growth rate slipped to 9.1%.

Significantly, almost all major carriers operated a truncated schedule, mostly led by the crippled Jet Airways and budget carrier Indigo which had to cancel hundreds of flights in the month due to a host of reasons. These include cash-crunch, pilot shortages, notices to airmen at various airports and a reduced capacity due to grounding of some planes, among others.

Indigo retained its top position with a market share of 43.4%, carrying 4.93 million passengers in February, while Jet, along with subsidiary Jetlite, slipped to a distant fourth position carrying 1.28 million passengers and had a combined market share of 11.4%.

Both Spicejet and national carrier Air India flew more passengers than Jet at 1.55 million and 1.45 million, and had market share of 13.7% and 12.8%, respectively.

Another budget carrier Goair, which garnered 9% market share with 1.02 million passengers, continued to outperform on punctuality from the four major airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, recording an average 86.3% followed by Vistara at 81.6% in the month.

However, Indigo, slipped to fifth position in OTP (on-time performance) at 76.2% during the month, while Spicejet’s retained its leadership in average seat occupancy at 94%.
21/03/19 PTI/The Hindu

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