National carrier Air India bucked the trend in the month of September by carrying more passengers compared with the same month last year, even as total number of passengers flying during the month fell 11%.
AI increased its market share by one percentage point in September compared with August. It carried nearly 6% more passengers during September compared with the same month in 2011. AI?s market share increased to 19.3% in September from 18.2% in August.
During September, Indian carriers carried 40.18 lakh passengers, a drop of 11% over 45.31 lakh passengers last year. Compared with August, the total number of passengers carried by domestic airlines fell 8%.
Low-cost carrier IndiGo remained the largest domestic airline with a 27.2% market share. It carrier carried 21% more passengers compared with September 2011 with 10.94 lakh passengers. IndiGo was also the only carrier with more than 10 lakh passengers during the month. The Jet Airways Group came in second place for the second consecutive month. Jet Airways along with JetLite had a market share of 23.8%, nearly two percentage points less than August 2012.
In September, Jet Airways and Jet Lite carried 9.58 lakh passengers, a drop of 17% over the same month last year when it carried 11.57 lakh passengers.
Media-baron Kalanithi Maran-promoted low-cost carrier SpiceJet maintained its market share at 18.5% in September compared to the previous month. It carried 7.43 lakh passengers, an increase of 18% over 6.30 lakh passengers in the same month last year. Wadia Group-promoted GoAir had a market share of 7.6%. Kingfisher, which remained grounded since October 1, was the smallest airline with a market share of 3.5%.
