The four low-cost airlines - Air Deccan, SpiceJet, Indigo Airline and Go Air — have together cornered a market share of 27.1 per cent during January-September this year, the latest data compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation shows.

Jet Airways, however, continues to dominate the domestic market with a share of 32.8 per cent. The total number of passenger flown by the nine scheduled domestic airlines stood at 229.39 lakh.

The state-owned airline Indian that had a market share of 22.5 per cent was in second place followed by Air Deccan (17.9 per cent), Air Sahara (8.7 per cent) and Kingfisher Airlines (8.3 per cent).

While almost all the full service airlines have seen a dip in their market share during the year, the low-cost airlines have bucked the trend. Jet Airways saw its market share dip to 30.4 per cent during the third quarter from 34.9 per cent recorded during the first quarter, while Indian's market share stood at 21.6 per cent at the end of the third quarter down from 23.9 per cent in the first quarter. Similarly, Air Sahara's market share dipped to 8.8 per cent from 9.7 per cent. In sharp comparison, the market share of Air Deccan rose from 15.2 per cent during the first quarter to touch 19.3 per cent during the third quarter, while that of Spice Jet increased to 6.9 per cent during the third quarter from 6 per cent recorded during January-March this year. Similarly, Go Air saw its market share increase to 2.5 per cent from 1.6 per cent. Kingfisher Airline also reported an increase in market share during the year.

The data shows that during the third quarter, Jet Airways carried 23.15 lakh passengers down from 26.89 lakh during the second quarter, Indian carried 16.49 lakh (17.73 lakh), Air Deccan 14.67 lakh (15.41 lakh), Air Sahara 6.68 lakh (6.26 lakh), Spice Jet 5.25 lakh (5.61 lakh), Go Air 1.93 lakh (2.19 lakh) and Paramount 61,000 (41,000).

Taken from Business Line

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