Domestic air traffic continues to grow

In a relief to the Indian aviation sector, the domestic air traffic witnessed an over 20 per cent growth between January and March this year with airlines carrying over 1.18 crore flyers.

Domestic carriers flew a total of 118.53 lakh passengers as against 98.22 lakh in the same period last year, registering an increase of 20.67 per cent, official figures released today showed.

The growth in domestic passenger traffic came in the backdrop of a negative 1.94 per cent rate recorded during January-October of 2008.

About 30.54 lakh passengers flew with Jet Airways- JetLite combine, while Kingfisher Airlines carried 26.84 lakh passengers followed by Air India (Domestic) with 20.90 lakh.

In the low cost carrier category, IndiGo topped the list with 17.76 lakh passengers choosing to fly with them, while SpiceJet flew 14.28 lakh and GoAir 6.37 lakh.

The all-business class Paramount Airways carried 1.84 lakh passengers during the same period, the figures showed.

During this period, Jet and JetLite together cornered 25.8 per cent of market share, with Kingfisher recording 22.6 per cent and Air India 17.6 per cent.

IndiGo bagged 15 per cent of the market, followed by SpiceJet with 12 per cent and GoAir and Paramount with 5.4 and 1.6 per cent, respectively.

In March this year, about 39.03 lakh flyers were flown by the scheduled airlines, with Jet-JetLite carrying 10.18 lakh passengers, Kingfisher 8.99 lakh, Air India 6.93 lakh, IndiGo 5.74 lakh, SpiceJet 4.63 lakh, Go Air 2.06 lakh and Paramount 50,000 passengers.