JOIN USAir India has something to cheer about this winter with the national career recording the highest seat occupancy in October, and it upstaged SpiceJet to take the second position in market share.
Air India is the only major airline along with Jet Airways to increase the number of passengers it flew last month compared to September, the latest data released by Directorate General of Civil Aviation said.
As per the report, the domestic air traffic grew by 18.31 per cent -- from 50.08 lakh passengers in October last year to 59.25 lakh in October this year.
The total number of passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-October period was 550.68 lakh as against 507.03 lakh during the corresponding period of 2013.
While IndiGo carried 18.90 lakh passengers last month, Air India came second with 11.56 lakh passengers. SpiceJet, which had the highest seat occupancy in September, had 10.27 lakh passengers in October as against 10.81 lakh in September. It's market share also decreased to 17.3 per cent in October from 18.6 per cent in September.
SpiceJet COO Sanjiv Kapoor said, “But our goal is not marker share but profit maximisation. In peak season, one maximises Revenue per Available Seat Km (RASK) through yields and not loads.”
On the cancellation front, IndiGo recorded the highest percentage of flight cancellations at 2.35 per cent as against Air India’s 1.45 per cent.