Airlines Deals

A war of claims regarding market share has erupted in the Indian skies with both, the state-run Indian and low-cost carrier Air Deccan, claiming the number two position behind Jet Airways.

Air Deccan today claimed that it has become the second largest airline in the country with a market share of 21.2 per cent in June while the market share of Indian dipped to 20.8 per cent in June. Indian on its part said it continued to be the second largest domestic airline in the country.

According to June data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Indian is right. Its market share is 21.8 per cent, while Air Deccan’s is 20.3 per cent.

Jet Airways continues to be the largest domestic carrier with a market share of 30 per cent.

Air Deccan attributes the growth to the aggressive expansions undertaken by it in the last three years of its operation.

As per the DGCA data, the capacity and seat deployed by Air Deccan has gone upto 11.7 per cent in January this year to 17.6 per cent in June. However, the capacity of Indian has declined to 24.1 per cent in June from 28.4 per cent in January.

G R Gopinath, managing director, Air Deccan, said: “Dynamic pricing coupled with wide connectivity, rapid expansion of fleet and several other innovative steps enabled us in becoming the second largest airline in the country in such a short period of time.”

Senior Indian executives said that the airline is facing stiff constrains in terms of aircraft availability due to maintenance backlog as well as deployment of aircraft on international routes and on relief operations.

Out of the total fleet of 48 aircraft, Indian should ideally be flying 42 aircraft. But, it has been able to deploy only 36 aircraft at present on domestic routes.

Indian executives are of the view that the airline’s market share will go up considerably with the induction of new aircraft, which are expected to join its fleet from October 2006 as a part of its aircraft acquisition plan.