August 2016: Performance of Indian carriers in domestic aviation market

Airlines in India together carried a total of 83.81 lakh (8.38 million) passengers in the domestic sector in August 2016. Continuing its dream run with above 20% year on year growth rate, the domestic aviation sector had handled 644.68 lakh passengers with 23.14% YoY growth during first six month (January-August) of 2016 over the same period a year ago. While the MoM growth rate for the month of August was at 23.98%. Going by the passenger growth trend of the first half of 2016 and the planned capacity expansion during the second half of 2016 (LCCs like IndiGo, GoAir and FSC like Vistara), it remains only matter of time that domestic aviation sector in India to record 100 million annual passenger for the first time in 2016. While IndiGo maintained and further consolidated its top position in terms of domestic market share SpiceJet continued to outperform others in terms of load factors with above 90% PLF for 15 straight months. But in the on-time performance charts, Vistara has once again slipped to second position with IndiGo claiming the top position where it used to be before the arrival of Vistara.

IndiGo the market leader in terms of number of passengers carried, has also posted the maximum growth rate (40% MoM) despite having a large base of the 2015 level. While GoAir and SpiceJet have also recorded healthy growth. Air India and Jet Airways are the only two among the old established airlines. Jet Airways which of late diverting capacity from highly competitive domestic sector to short haul international sectors, reports the slowest growth with marginal increase in number of passengers carried.

As expected, IndiGo leads the market share with 39.9% in August 2016, its lifetime high market share. With the kind of planned capacity expansion in the coming months, the airline may well reach near 50% market share in the world's fastest growing domestic market. The difference between IndiGo and Jet Airways (number two) is ever increasing and the former is more than double the volume of the later. In the month of August IndiGo's market share has surpassed the combined market share of all three full-service airlines  (Air India, Jet Airways and Vistara).

After a really long time, IndiGo claims the top position where it used to belong before the arrival of Vistara in the scene. While Vistara has slipped down to the second position and ties with SpiceJet in the on-time performance (OTP) chart . SpiceJet which is known for its high load factor, has also significantly improved its on-time record over the past few months. As usual Air India has the lowest numbers of flights operated on-time but it is showing even deteriorating trend from its own performance earlier.

As usual SpiceJet once again had topped the PLF chart with 93.2% in August 2016 with this SpiceJet had reported more than 90% PLF for 16 straight months. And it has become the king of loads in Indian domestic aviation sector. Thanks to their frequent 'sales', not just SpiceJet, all low-cost airlines have performed much better than their full-service competitors with four among the top five positions being occupied by them, Jet Airways was the only full-service carrier present in the top five.