GoAir Q1 traffic up 21% to 1.7 mn on non-metro push

Wadias' promoted budget carrier GoAir has recorded a 21 per cent growth in traffic on the back of capacity addition and an expanded route network in non-metro markets in the first quarter of the fiscal.

"Our passenger traffic grew 21.42 per cent in the June quarter as we carried 3 lakh more passengers during the period. During the quarter, our total passenger traffic stood at 1.7 million against 1.4 last year," an official of the city-based airline told PTI.

This growth was achieved following addition of new flights and destinations, the official added.

In June alone, the airline ferried 6 lakh passengers compared to 4.5 lakh in the corresponding month of last year, he said.

GoAir, which is one of the two domestic carriers having reported profit in FY14 along with the largest player IndiGo, also achieved double-digit market share at 10.1 per cent in June, for the first time since its launch in November 2005.

In FY13, the low-cost carrier made over Rs 100 crore profit on a revenue of Rs 3,000 crore, and saw profit again in FY14, chief executive Giorgio De Roni had recently said.

Stating that the airline recorded 2,000 departures more than the last year, the official said Kolkata-Nagpur-Kolkata and Nagpur-Pune-Nagpur sectors were new additions during the April-June period.

Additional capacity in respect to first quarter last year has been deployed on the Delhi-Srinagar, Bangalore-Pune, Delhi-Goa, Mumbai-Lucknow, Kolkata-Patna, Mumbai-Kochi and Mumbai-Jaipur sectors, the official said.

In June, it carried 29.1 per cent more passengers than in the same month in 2013. The airline has recorded a positive growth in the market share for three months in a row.

The numbers in June have been very promising as the airline obtained them with a capacity share of 9.1 per cent and the highest load factor of 81.5 per cent in the industry. The airline had recorded the second highest load factor of 81.8 per cent in May.

Commenting on the rising market share, De Roni said, "This was due to deploying additional capacity in the metro to non-metro routes where growth has been consistently strong. We have now more than 70 per cent of our capacity deployed on such routes with Srinagar, Pune, Goa, Nagpur and Patna being the strongest non-metro routes."

The Wadia group airline operates across 21 routes with over 975 flights and around 2,000 connections a week.