Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Yash Gupte
The January- March 2023 data have brought cheers for the domestic airline industry as figures shows that the airline industry has recovered from the turbulence caused due to the pandemic. Image Source: IANS
Talking about the market share, Indigo continued to have the highest market share in India’s civil aviation market. Indigo had a market share of 56.8 percent in the month of March.
According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's Traffic Report for March 2023, domestic airlines carried 375.04 lakh passengers from January through March 2023 compared to 247.23 lakh passengers during the same period in the previous year, representing a growth of 51.70 percent annually and 21.41 percent monthly. The year 2023 has brought cheers to the aviation market as January witnessed a record increase in the number of passengers as compared to January 2022. The air passenger traffic nearly doubled to 1.25 crore in January 2023 as compared to 64.08 lakh recorded in the year-ago period. Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January- February 2023 were 246.11 lakhs as against 141.04 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering annual growth of 74.50 percent and monthly growth of 56.82 percent.
Source: Directorate General of Civil Aviation
The January- March 2023 data have brought cheers for the domestic airline industry as figures shows that the airline industry has recovered from the turbulence caused due to the pandemic. The domestic airlines carried 375.04 lakh passengers from January through March 2023 compared to 354.53 lakhs in the same period in 2019. This clearly indicated that the airlines industry has successfully recovered from the setback caused by the pandemic and is once again successfully touching the sky with glory.
Coming over to the passenger load factor, Spice Jet had the highest percentage of passenger load factor in March 2023. The airlines had a passenger load factor of 92.3 percent as compared to 94.1 percent in February 2023. But Spice Jet is not the only airlines that has experienced a drop in the passenger load factor in the last month of the financial year 2022-23. Along with Spice Jet, Air Asia, Air India, Akasa Air, Go First, Indigo, Vistara, Indiaone Air and Star Air witnessed a decline in passenger load factor. The only airlines to record an increase in the passenger load factor in March 2023 were Air Alliance and Fly Big. Air Alliance’s load factor increased from 64.9 percent in February to 65.5 percent in March. In case of Fly Big airlines, its load factor increased from 56.4 percent in February to 60.5 percent in March 2023. A major decline in the load factor was witnessed in the case of Akasa Air as its load factor decreased from 83.7 percent in February to 73.6 percent in March. It was a drop of more than ten percent.
Source: Directorate General of Civil Aviation
The percentage of available seating capacity that has been occupied by passengers is gauged using a term called the passenger load factor in the airline business. A high load factor is favoured over a low load factor since it shows that an airline has sold the majority of its available seats. A high load factor is crucial to an airline's performance since airlines have small profit margins and large operating expenses. A high load factor means that the majority of the seats on an airline's planes are occupied by customers. Each flight for airlines carries significant fixed costs. An airline that has a low load factor may be unprofitable, which is cause for concern.
Talking about the market share, Indigo continued to have the highest market share in India’s civil aviation market. Indigo had a market share of 56.8 percent in the month of March. This clearly indicates that the airline dominates the Indian aviation market with more than 50 percent market share. Indigo was followed by its distant competitor ‘Vistara’ which reported a market share of 8.9 percent in March. Vistara was followed by Air India with a markets share of 8.8 percent. India One, Fly Big and Star Air had the lowest market share of 0.0, 0.1 and 0.1 percent respectively. Indigo, the airline with largest market share also carried the maximum number of passengers in March 2023. Around 73.17 lakh passengers flew with Indigo. But one thing which definitely comes to our mind is that why Indigo continues to dominate the civil aviation industry.
Source: Directorate General of Civil Aviation
The reason behind Indigo’s dominance in the domestic market can be attributed to its on time performance and less complaints from the customers. Around 92 percent of Indigo’s flights arrived and departed on time from Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Akasa Air had the best on time performance as 94.2 percent. Also, coming back to Indigo, it recently announced that its fleet size has crossed the mark of 300. Currently, Indigo operates the Airbus A320 CEO and NEO, the A321 NEO, and the ATR 72-600 aircraft. The seating capacity on the A320 CEO fleet is 180, A320 NEO fleet is 180 /186, the A321 fleet is 222/232 and ATR Fleet is 78. The fleet of 300 aircraft include 120 new generation A320 NEOs, 98 A320 CEOs, 25 ATRs and 37 A321 NEOs. Also, Indigo became the first Indian airline in 2017 to operate 1,000 flights in a day.
Source: Directorate General of Civil Aviation
Akasa Air ranked at the top in case of on time performance. Around 94 percent of the flights operated by Akasa Air arrived and departed on time in the month of March. Akasa was followed by the airline with the largest market share- Indigo. 92 percent of the flights flown by Indigo were on time. Go First performed the worst as more than half of the flights operated by it were never on time. This is surprising as 95.2 percent of the flights operated by Go first were on time in 2019 and it was then the most punctual airlines in the domestic aviation market.
The most common reason for the delay of flights is ‘Reactionary Delay.’ The delays caused by late arrival of the aircraft, crew passengers or baggage from previous journeys is known as reactionary delay.
Talking about complaints, during March 2023, a total of 347 passenger related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of March 2023 has been around 0.27, with Indiaone Air, which has the lowest market share reporting a maximum of 5.6 complaints per 10,000 passengers. It was followed by the other two airlines with lowest market share- Star Air and Fly Big. The least complaints were reported in case of Go First, Vistara, Indigo and Air Asia.
Source: Directorate General of Civil Aviation
Flight problems and Baggage are the major reasons for complaints. Around 38.6 percent complaints were registered due to flight problems while 22.2 percent complaints were registered due to baggage problems. The other major reason for complaints was refund from airlines.
Talking about the international air passenger traffic, data shows that the international aviation industry has not been able to recover from the effects of covid-19 pandemic. In 2022, 3,781 million passengers travelled across the world as compared to 4,543 in 2019. This shows that the international aviation industry has a long way to go before it recovers from the turbulence of the pandemic.
In the long run though, there can be no doubt that the aviation sector in India will grow at very healthy rates. For one, massive foreign direct and domestic investments in India across a spectrum will fuel business travel. Many new airports have been inaugurated by the government in recent months and more are expected to be completed and inaugurated at the earliest in different states of the country. This will definitely provide a boost to the aviation industry and bring an increase in the domestic passenger traffic.
