Low-Priced Air Tickets Lead to More People Flying

New Delhi: Low-priced air tickets offered by various Indian airlines seem to have had an effect, with the number of passengers flying in August growing by over 8.3 per cent compared to the previous month, official data showed on Tuesday.

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 during January-August 2014 saw an increase of 5.31 per cent to 433.25 lakh as compared to 411.40 lakh in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

On a year-on-year basis, the passenger traffic between January and August rose from in 2013 to in the corresponding 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, which 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, followed by Air India (16.2 per cent), GoAir (10 per cent), Air Costa (1.1 per cent) and AirAsia India (0.6 per cent).