After two difficult years, the aviation sector is finally recovering as air traffic recorded a growth of 7.8% for the calendar year 2009 over the previous year. The revival in global economy along with eased corporate travel norms have resulted in an increase in the traffic.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation released data that showed domestic airlines carried 445.13 lakh passenger against 412.71 lakh in 2008. The previous year was very hard for the sector as the high fuel prices had pushed up costs while tickets fares dropped because of low demand. During 2008-09 the passenger traffic recorded a dip and the sector lost an estimated Rs 10,000 crore because of high fuel costs and excess capacity.

Jet Airways emerged as the largest player in the domestic airline market at the year end 2009 by overtaking rival Kingfisher Airlines. Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways’ combined market share was 26.5%.

Jet reported a 53% increase in domestic passengers during December, while its market share rose from 24.3% in quarter ended march 2009 to 26.5% in the fourth quarter. On the other hand Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines saw a dip in its market share in the last one year. In the January-March quarter, Kingfisher was the market leader with a share of 27.2% however it dropped to
20.6% in the forth quarter behind the rival Jet.

In the beginning of the year Kingfisher dedicated almost 70-80% capacity to its economy brand, Kingfisher Red while Jet launched Jet Konnect in May taking the airlines to a leading position. In the third quarter the market share for Jet and Kingfisher was 25.5% and 22.9%, respectively, according to some experts.

State carrier Air India too increased it share marginally from first quarter’s 17% to 18.3% at the end of the fourth quarter.

According to the DGCA estimates relating to the seat factor aspect, IndiGo airlines filled up 90% of its seats followed by SpiceJet (88%) and JetLite (81.6%) in the month of December.

Jetlite topped the list in the area of cancellations with a 3.2% cancellation rate while GoAir had the lowest cancellation rate at 0.5%.

The market share for the whole year has Jet and JetLite together at 25.4% followed by Kingfisher with 23.9%, Air India with 17.5%, low cost IndiGo with 13.9% and SpiceJet with 12.4%.