Jet Airways, Jetlite and GoAir were the only three domestic airlines in India that reported a month-on-month increase in seat factor (number of seats occupied against number of seats available) this February. All other domestic airlines saw a marginal decline with overall domestic seat factor also declining owing to end of peak travel season. As per data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Jet’s seat factor was up to 76.5% (73.9%), JetLite’s to 80.2% (74.6%) and GoAir’s to 87.1% (83.3%) during the month. The biggest decline, almost by 3 percentage points, was seen in Kingfisher’s seat factor at 83.6% (86.5%), followed by Air India at 68% (69.3%), SpiceJet at 81% (82.6%) and IndiGo at 87.6% (88.6%).
In terms of market share though, Kingfisher continued to rule the domestic skies, despite IndiGo snapping at its heels. While Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher network carried almost one in five domestic passengers, with 19% market share in February, low fare IndiGo was not far behind at 18.7%. Jet Airways was also close behind IndiGo with 18% share of the market and Air India (domestic) was at the fourth place with 15.8% share. SpiceJet was a distant fifth at 13.8%, followed by Jetlite at 8.1% and then Go Air at 6.6%.