Air India ticket sales jump 32 pc in Feb

Debt-stricken Air India has registered another improvement in year-on-year performance in February, with average passenger revenue growing by a healthy 32 per cent, a senior airline official said.

While revenue from international network grew 20 per cent, the same from the domestic network rose nearly 58 per cent during the period, taking the overall revenue rise to 32 per cent.

"The airline's on-time performance has improved by up to 80 per cent across the network, in the first week of March, reaching as high as 88 per cent on March 8," the official told PTI.

While capacity on its international services remained more or less stagnant, on the domestic service, it went up by 20 per cent and on the overall network by 4 per cent, he added.

There was also an increase in the number of passengers carried, which went up 13.4 per cent on the overall network, he said.

The airline's yield per revenue kilometre increased 17 per cent on international routes and nearly 31 per cent on its domestic routes. On the overall network, there has been a 24 per cent increase in the yield.

Increase in fuel cost, however, continues to dent Air India's substantial increase in revenues, he said.

"However, aviation turbine fuel prices alone registered an increase of 20 per cent in February. For the entire year, Air India expects the impact of the increase in aviation turbine fuel to be in the region of Rs 2,000 crore.

"On a cumulative basis, from April 2011 to February 2012, its fuel cost has gone up by 40 per cent. If it was not for the fuel price we would have done far better," he said.
He said the airline is also examining the idea of direct import of fuel as recently permitted by the government to save on fuel cost.