May 22, 2014: IndiGo which carried 16.8 lakh passengers in April, 11% more than what it carried in the same month last year has retained its top position in the domestic passenger aviation market with 31.6% market share. The airline carried 15.1 lakh passengers in April 2013. IndiGo which gained from the discounts that it gave in February for the travel month of April also was able to carry increased passengers because of increase in its capacity. The company added one plane every month and that resulted in 13,777 departures in April compared to 11,426 last year.
The market share of other airlines was Spice Jet 17.9%, Jet Airways & Jet Lite 21.8%, Air India 18.3 %, GoAir 9.5% and Air Costa 0.9%. Spice Jet which had a market share of 19.6% had cut capacity in April and had fewer departures compared to last year saw its market share drop to 17.9%. The growth in the number of passengers flying by IndiGo saw a resultant overall growth in the market with total number of passengers touching 53.2 lakh which is 2.02% more than last year. In terms of load factor though IndiGo was able to increase its market share, the load factor was only 76.9% compared to 83.3% last year. Jet Lite which operates under the Jet-Konnect brand was able to have 76% load factor compared to Jet Airways which had a load factor of 70.9%. Air India registered a average load factor of 73.%.
