Air traffic grows 20% in Jan-Feb

Air traffic in the first two months of this year showed a major growth of 19.2 per cent compared with the same period last year, a development that could bring some relief to the loss-making Indian aviation industry. The total passengers carried in January and February this year was 80.56 lakh as against 67.61 lakh in the first quarter of last year, official figures released today showed. The hike in passenger traffic is likely to have a positive impact on the financial health of the air carriers, most of which have been reeling under heavy losses for the past two years. Like previous months, Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite together led the way in flying most passengers -- 10.28 lakh in January and 10.08 lakh in February, followed by Kingfisher and its low-cost subsidiary Kingfisher Red with 9.08 lakh and 8.77 lakh and Air India (Domestic) with 7.34 lakh and 6.63 lakh. They were closely followed by no-frills carrier IndiGo which carried 6.25 lakh and 5.77 lakh in the first two months of this year, followed by SpiceJet with 5.0 lakh and 4.65 lakh and GoAir with 2.2 lakh and 2.11 lakh. Full-business class airline Paramount carried 72,000 and 62,000 respectively, the figures showedJet and JetLite jointly bagged over one-fourth of the market share in the two months, carrying 25.2 per cent and 26.3 per cent of the total passengers during the period.