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.”