Of the over 1.11 crore domestic passengers who flew between January and March 2008, 10.3 per cent chose to travel by InterGlobe Aviation Pvt Ltd’s IndiGo, double the share who flew with the airline in the same period last year. Low cost carrier Spice Jet too improved its share to 10.3 per cent during the first quarter of this calendar year compared with 8.1 per cent in January-March 2007. The Wadia Group-promoted GoAir too managed to retain its share of over 4 per cent.

Low cost carriers have been able to manage this feat by eating into the pie of dominant players like Jet Airways and Deccan. The worst hit amongst full fledged carriers has been state-run Indian, whose market share dropped to 14.7 per cent in January-March this year compared with 19.2 per cent during the corresponding period 2007.

Jet Airways took a beating too, with its share dropping to 22.7 per cent from 24.2 per cent last year. Its low cost counterpart Jet Lite could not improve its performance, losing one per cent from last year’s share of just over 8 per cent. South-based airline operator Paramount Airways too lost share marginally, from 1.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent.

Interestingly, the Deccan-Kingfisher combine bucked the trend. Deccan lost a significant 4 per cent of its overall share of 18.6 last year. Kingfisher Airlines, however, became the only full-service carrier to corner a higher share. It got on board 14.5 per cent of travelers as against 10.6 per cent the previous year.

Low cost carriers say their strategy to improve share and keep costs down has been through aggressive pricing and planning. “Our market share has been rising, and jumped from 3.2 per cent in April 2007 to over 4 per cent presently,” said GoAir chief executive officer Edgardo Badiali. “Our planned capacity expansion has ensured that we remain at the top of the list in terms of load factors.”