Strikes, cancellations pull down Air India's market share

National carrier Air India topped the cancellation chart with a 10-day-long strike in May while almost all other airlines in the country reported cancellations of less than one per cent. Air India also slipped to the fifth position in terms of market share during May 2011.

Against this, three private airlines - Jet Airways, Kingfisher and IndiGo - flew a record one million passengers on an average, air traffic data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), showed.

Passengers carried by six domestic airlines rose about 17.6 per cent to about 25 million year-on-year in May. Overall domestic air traffic stood at 54.92 lakh passengers against 47.86 lakh in April.

While the overall cancellation rate among domestic airlines stood at 3.4 per cent in May, it was 18 per cent for Air India, the highest for any airline in a single month.
 
Low-cost carrier IndiGo did not report even a single cancellation during the month, DGCA data showed.

Air India's market share in May slipped to 13.2 per cent against SpiceJet's 14.2 per cent. IndiGo almost bridged the gap with Kingfisher Airlines with a market share of 19.9 per cent against Kingfisher's 20 per cent.

Jet Airways had a market share of 18.5 per cent while its low-cost arm JetLite had a share of 7.6 per cent. GoAir's market share stood at 6.6 per cent during May.