Domestic air traffic stabilises

The fall in domestic air traffic seemed to have stabilised with official figures today showing a marginal increase of 30,000 in passenger load in August from the previous month.

The total domestic passengers carried by all scheduled airlines last month was 36.3 lakh compared with 35.97 lakh in July, the statistics showed. In July, this figure was lower by about a lakh compared with that in June, indicating stability in the passenger traffic growth rate.

Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite led the show in August carrying 9.59 together, compared with Kingfisher and its no-frill carrier Kingfisher Red at 8.2 lakh.

They were followed by Air India (domestic) with 6.04 lakh and low-cost major IndiGo with 5.05 lakh, SpiceJet with 4.47 lakh, GoAir 2.07 lakh and Paramount 0.74 lakh.

Jet had a percentage share of 26.4, followed by 22.6 per cent of Kingfisher and Kingfisher Red and 16.6 per cent of Air India (domestic). Among the no-frill airlines, IndiGo had a percentage share of 13.9, SpiceJet 12.3, GoAir 5.7 and Paramount 2.0.

The figures showed that the low cost carriers enjoyed the highest seat factor. Paramount and IndiGo registered the maximum seat factor of 84 and 79.2 per cent, while GoAir had a seat factor of 80.1 per cent and SpiceJet 73 per cent.

Jet Airways and JetLite had 70 and 72.9 per cent of their seats filled up in August, followed by Kingfisher at 68.7 per cent and Air India (domestic) at 59.8.