low-priced air tickets offered by various Indian airlines seem to have had an effect, with the number of passengers flown by them in August growing by over 8.3 per cent compared to July this year, official data showed today.
The latest figures showed the number of domestic passengers carried by the airlines grew from 52.60 lakh in July to 56.97 lakh in August.
On a year-on-year basis, the passenger traffic between January and August rose from 411.40 lakh in 2013 to 433.25 lakh in the same period this year, a rise of 5.31 per cent.
However, the seat factor or the percentage of average seats filled by the airlines remained within the 70-80 per cent range for most airlines, barring no-frills carrier SpiceJet that has initiated the fare war and its competitor GoAir, the data showed.
IndiGo continued to dominate the market with 32.6 per cent share, followed by Jet Airways-Jetlite combine at 20.1 per cent.
SpiceJet cornered 19.5 per cent of the market-share, Air India 16.2 per cent, GoAir 10, Air Costa 1.1 and new airline AirAsia India 0.6.
Meanwhile, in yet another move to push for low-fare domestic air travel, low cost carrier SpiceJet on Tuesday announced a limited period offer for tickets to fly from mid-January till October next year.
The no-frill carrier, which has been initiating a series of promotional offers almost every month since January this year, announced tickets with base fare of Rs 699 for sale from today till Thursday for travel between January 16 and October 24 next year.
The “non-refundable and non-changeable” tickets, being sold on first-come, first-serve basis, would be valid on SpiceJet’s entire domestic network for travel on direct, via as well as onward flights, the airline said in a statement, adding that “only the taxes and fees are refundable.”
It also said the “fares vary from sector to sector depending on the travel distance.”
Chief Commercial Officer of the airline Kaneswaran Avili said the travel period under the ‘Early New Year sale offer’ was “extensive...Advance planning of travel will help customers to fly at very nominal fares and travel more often.”