IndiGo flies with 30% empty seats in Sep even as air traffic grows

For the first time since inception, IndiGo cornered over 30% share of the domestic market in September, inching closer to the one third mark as domestic traffic grew for the second consecutive month despite steep fare increases by most airlines. September also marked emergence of Air India as clearly the second most chosen domestic airline – it was earlier neck and neck with SpiceJet most months. The national airline crossed the 20% market share mark. So now, one in three domestic passengers travel IndiGo while every fifth flyer prefers AI flights. Jet Airways (standalone) was close to AI at 19.1% share of the market but SpiceJet remained at 17.3%.As per data released by aviation regulator DGCA today, traffic grew a healthy 13.4% in September over August with 45.55 lakh flyers against September’s 40.18 lakh. Only in the last few months has domestic traffic reversed its previous decline and actually begun to show some growth – September growth must have largely come from festive travel. But while overall traffic growth returned to healthy double digits, no domestic airline was able to fill more than 70% of seats on its planes and some did not manage to fill even this number.
Read News in full 20/10/13 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post