Indian air carriers continued to fly high in October, flying 86.72 lakh (8.67 million) passengers, marking 23.2 percent growth over 70.39 lakh (7.04 million) passengers carried in October last year. IndiGo, the low-cost carrier, increased its market share to 42.6 percent, its highest in calendar year 2016 from 40 percent in September 2016. Air India and Jet Airways saw their market share drop.
National carrier Air India's share fell to 13 percent from 14.7 percent in September, while Jet Airways saw a dip to 14.7 percent from 16.2 percent in September.
Low-cost carrier SpiceJet marginally increased its market share to 12.9 percent from 12.5 percent in September.
GoAir, the low-cost carrier owned by the Wadia Group, witnessed a fall in market share to 7.9 percent in October from 8.3 percent in September.
AirAsia India and Vistara, the two ventures in which the Tata Group has stakes, improved their market share but still stayed at 2.7 percent.
In the 10-month period ended October 2016, Air India, IndiGo, Jet Airways, SpiceJet, GoAir, AirAsia India and Vistara flew 813.70 lakh (81.37 million) passengers, an increase of 23.18 percent over 660.60 lakh (66.06 million) passengers in the corresponding period last year, according to statistics released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday.
From a passenger load factor (PLF) perspective, SpiceJet's PLF dropped to 91.9 percent from 93.5 percent in September, while the fall was sharp for Air India, to 71.8 percent in October this year from 79 percent in the preceding month.
While IndiGo owner Interglobe Aviation and Jet Airways have declared their September quarter results, SpiceJet will be announcing its Q2 performance on November 25.
