Still no clear signs of recovery as traffic dips in Feb

The aviation industry continues to see plummeting growth with February air traffic growth figures plunging 17 per cent year-on-year.

The aviation industry continues to see plummeting growth with February air traffic growth figures plunging 17 per cent year-on-year. In contrast,the industry saw good growth of 36 per cent year-on-year in December 2009. The total number of flyers came down to 38.63 lakh in February from a high of around 41 lakh in January this year.

The figure pales when compared to the 44.87 lakh passengers in December,the highest in that year. Despite the airlines advertising low fares,passenger response does not appear to have picked up,as the latest figures released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation today showed.

Commanding a share of a little over 25 per cent of domestic skies,Jet Airways along with its no-frills subsidiary Jet Lite,flew 10 lakh passengers in February.

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Close on its heels,Kingfisher and Kingfisher Red follow with the second highest market share of 22.7 per cent,flying eight lakh passengers. Kingfisher,though,managed to beat all the other airlines when it came to sticking to schedules,clocking 86.5 per cent on-time performance (OTP). The Jet-combine finished last on the OTP parameter,as Jet Airways reported 74.9 per cent and JetLite reported 67.7 per cent OTP.

In a market where all airlines lost market share compared with the previous month,national carrier Air India,undergoing a turnaround to avail government funding,carried 6.63 lakh passengers,garnering 17.2 per cent market share. Air Indias (Domestic) passenger load factor hovered at 72 per cent. Among the low-priced carriers,IndiGo continued to hold on to the top slot with an almost 15 per cent market share,carrying 5.77 lakh passengers. It was followed by SpiceJet with 12 per cent market share,flying 4.65 lakh. Jeh Wadia-promoted Go Air flew 2.11 lakh,cornering 5.5 per cent market share.

Indicating the shift towards low-cost flying,IndiGo topped the domestic airlines chart with 83 per cent passenger load factor,SpiceJet came next with 81.3 per cent and Jet lite followed with almost 80 per cent. Go Air managed to fill 78 per cent of its seats,while Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways posted passenger load factor of 75.9 per cent and 75 per cent respectively. All-business configuration Paramount Airways posted 85.2 per cent passenger load factor.