India's domestic air traffic falls in February; IndiGo, Air India saw dip in market share while Jet Airways, SpiceJet, Go Air gain

India's civil aviation ministry has released the provisional domestic passenger volume data for February. The growth rate has slided after consistently posting a YoY growth rate of above 20 percent in the past five-six months. Domestic passenger traffic grew 15.77 percent to 86.55 lakh (8.65 million) last month in comparison to 74.76 lakh (7.47 million) in February 2016.

In January 2017, Indian carriers flew 9.57 million passengers.

Market share trends

Budget carrier IndiGo Airlines maintained its position as the largest carrier in terms of passengers flown, with a market share of 39.5 percent, a tad lower from 39.8 percent in January 2017.

Full-service carrier Jet Airways saw its market share go up to 15.8 percent (15.5 percent in January 2017) while national carrier Air India's market share declined to 13.5 percent from 14.1 percent in January 2017.

Another budget carrier, SpiceJet, increased its market share to 13.1 percent in February 2017 from 12.8 percent in January 2017.

Yet another budget carrier, Go Air, of the Nusli Wadia Group, saw its market share go up marginally to 8.7 percent from 8.2 percent in January 2017.

Tata Group joint ventures in the Indian civil aviation space — budget carrier AirAsia India and full servicer airline Vistara — saw their market share dip to 2.8 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively, from 3 percent and 3.2 percent in January 2017.

For the first two months this calendar year, the 12 carriers flew 182.34 lakh passengers, marking a growth of 20.5 percent over 151.31 lakh passengers carried during the corresponding period last year, according to the data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Passenger load factor, or PLF

Air India and IndiGo Airlines reported a marginal fall in PLF for the month to 79.8 percent (81.4 percent in January 2017) and 87.7 percent (90 percent in January 2017), repectively.

SpiceJet marginally increased its PLF to 93.7 percent while it remained unchanged for Jet Airways at 86.8 percent.

Other carriers in the domestic aviation space include Air Costa, Zoom Air and Air Carnival.

Cancellation rate

Zoom Air, which commenced commercial operations last month, topped the list with 14.29 percent cancellation rate, followed by Air Costa (5.58 percent) and TrueJet (3.71 percent).

Overall, 8,761 passengers were affected due to flight cancellations during the month, forcing carriers to pay Rs 60.98 lakh in compensation.

Share prices

Of the 12 carriers, IndiGo Airlines-owner Interglobe Aviation, SpiceJet and Jet Airways are listed on Indian stock exchanges.

On Friday, shares of IndiGo-owner Interglobe Aviation closed 3.42 percent higher at Rs 922 on news that it plans to convert more Airbus A320neos to A321neos. Jet Airways ended 2.97 percent higher at Rs 477, while SpiceJet closed almost flat at Rs 84.