These may not be the times when airlines obsess about market share with most just barely meeting ends. Nevertheless, the first few days of domestic operations, after they resumed on May 25, may have reshuffled the industry's pecking order by market share, in a most interesting manner.
Data from online travel portal EaseMyTrip showed that AirAsia India has gained the most and considerably improved its market share to 12.65 percent, from 7 percent during pre-COVID-19 times.
It's now third to IndiGo and SpiceJet and has overtaken GoAir and Air India.
"These rankings are based on the bookings from June 1 to 10, for travel till June 12," said Nishant Pitti, CEO, EaseMyTrip.com.
In February, shows data by industry regulator DGCA, AirAsia India had a market share of 7.1 percent and was ranked just about Vistara.
To be sure, these rankings will change the moment the government opens up the sector a little more. As per government directions, airlines can operate only one-third of their summer schedule, till August 24.
This has made AirAsia India's operations, which otherwise has a much smaller fleet than GoAir and Air India, comparable to its larger peers.
The airline has been flying about 40 flights a day. GoAir, which resumed operations a week later than others, started off with 24 flights and had planned to ramp up it up to about 50 a day. It is yet not clear how many flights Air India, which has been busy with the Vande Bharat Mission operations, has been operating in the domestic sector.
AirAsia India otherwise has a fleet of 29 aircraft. On the other hand, GoAir has about 60 planes, and Air India has over 120.
On the ranking, IndiGo retains its top slot with a little over 50 percent market share, and SpiceJet is second with 14.67 percent.
What's helping AirAsia India?
So if the number of flights operated by AirAsia is nearly the same as some of the other airlines, what has helped it gained market share?
It's because of the airline's refund policy, says Pitti of EasyMyTrip.com.
"It has gained market share by providing refunds to customers. This has helped them sell more tickets," he said.
AirAsia India, and also IndiGo, had started crediting air ticket refunds into the accounts of travel agents instead of retaining money in credit shells.
Top routes
Delhi-Patna continued to be the busiest route. It was so when the bookings had resumed. The Delhi-Srinagar route also retains its second position.
The third busiest now is, Bengaluru-Kolkata, taking the place of Delhi-Imphal.
Delhi continues to be the busiest airport. The Indian capital is the destination or origin of eight of the 10 busiest routes.
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