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Amid the Covid pandemic in the past year, Vistara and IndiGo gained market share while SpiceJet and AirAsia lost market share.
According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s data, in June 2021, IndiGo’s market share rose to 58.6 per cent from 52 per cent during the same period last year. Vistara managed to catch up to 8.1 per cent of the Indian aviation market from 5.6 per cent during the same period last year.
Go First (formerly GoAir), too, managed to get 2.3 per cent of the market share.
On the other hand, SpiceJet’s market share dropped from 16.8 per cent in June 2020 to 9.1 per cent in June 2021 and AirAsia lost approximately 3.6 per cent of the market share, according to ICICI Securities’ analysis.
Overall, passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-July 2021 stood at 393.44 lakh as against 372.85 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering an annual growth of 5.52 per cent and monthly growth of 137.59 per cent, DGCA’s data showed.
Improvement in PLF
Interestingly, despite losing market share, SpiceJet’s passenger load factor (PLF) improved. “SpiceJet and Vistara reported the highest PLF of 75 per cent and 69 per cent in July 21 respectively,” the report said. IndiGo’s PLF reached 66.6 per cent in July. PLF improved sequentially in July 2021 for all airlines except Go First and Air Asia.
Aviation industry experts explained that SpiceJet lost market share despite having a strong PLF because it operated fewer flights compared to IndiGo and Vistara. “IndiGo, as a matter of fact, has a huge fleet compared to SpiceJet and hence, has a huge fixed cost. So, rather than keeping its aircraft parked, it flew more aircraft compared to SpiceJet and hence gained the market share,” said an industry expert.
Delhi airport managed the first position based on passenger (domestic) count between FY18 and Q1 of FY21. Mumbai airport, which had lost the second position to Bangalore, has now regained it, followed by Bangalore and Hyderabad airports.
Interestingly, Patna and Srinagar airports too have featured among the top ten airports in India in FY22TD in terms of passenger count.
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