Indian aviation records a bumper first quarter with 128.93 lakh domestic fliers

IndiGo, the country’s largest carrier by fleet size and domestic market share, continued its lead over others, closing the quarter with a market share of 55.7 percent in Q1CY23. The airline saw its best monthly performance in March, carrying 73.17 lakh passengers, making it the first time the airline had crossed the 70 lakh passenger mark in a month.

Despite the grounding of planes, IndiGo has been pushing its utilisation and holding on to its flights, even adding capacity as and when possible. It needs to be seen if the airline has been able to improve its margins,  and if it has, then how that has helped reduce losses in the last financial year.

After a few months in the number two position, Air India was pushed to number three in March by Vistara. However, Air India closed the quarter as the second-largest player in the country. Across the three Tata carriers, the collective market share now stands at 25.1 percent, about five percent lower than their target of 30 percent under the Vihaan.AI transformation plan. While Air India has more capacity in the market, Vistara has been able to push Air India out with higher load factors.

Traffic in Q1

Go FIRST and SpiceJet are shrinking fast

SpiceJet, which not so long ago had the second highest market share, has been dropping fast. The airline closed the month of March and the quarter in the sixth spot in terms of market share. The airline, which had announced the induction of additional MAX aircraft in Q4CY22, has not added any aircraft. The airline expanded capacity for the short term by means of wet leases, but it has seen its own fleet deplete.

Go FIRST has also lost market share with March seeing its traffic fall below that of AirAsia India, which climbed up to the fourth spot, behind fellow Tata carriers Air India and Vistara.

Go FIRST has been facing problems due to the grounding of its aircraft as Pratt & Whitney has not been able to provide replacement engines citing a supply chain crunch.  Indeed, Go FIRST has seen some of its aircraft leave the fleet as lessors and the airline reached an amicable settlement, while many remain grounded awaiting engines.

Surprising as it may seem, both SpiceJet and Go FIRST had high load factors in March, with SpiceJet continuing to have the highest load factor in the industry.

Blue skies ahead?

At 375.04 lakh passengers, the quarter is just short of the best-ever (Q4CY19), when 381 lakh passengers caught domestic flights. As we head into the high season of April to May, the world is faced with some uncertainty on the economic front along with rising cases of Covid-19 in the country. The typical holiday destinations are reporting high booking rates for May, but April has not really lived up to expectations, either in terms of passengers or flights.