The airline which was once known as the king of the skies, Jet Airways had to face a sad demise in April last year. The full-service carrier which connected India to many major cities across the world shut down its operations after being distressed by poor financials. However, now it seems that the exit of Jet Airways from the Indian aviation industry might have acted as a catalyst for the growth of other low cost carriers in the country like IndiGo, SpiceJet and others as they gained from the passing of Jet Airways. In the new data for the passenger traffic released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), we saw how the Jet Airways exit helped other airlines.
Low Cost Carriers Benefit
Take the current market leader for example, IndiGo, started in January by carrying 53.22 Lakh passengers and a 42% market share. However, come December, IndiGo boasted of a 47.5% market share with 61.88 lakh passengers flying its planes. After Jet Airways stopped its operations, IndiGo continued expanding to new domestic destinations, international destinations and also kept on increasing the number of aircrafts on its fleet. IndiGo had a peak market share of 49.9% in April 2019.
Airlines Increase Market Share
Other airlines, such as the low-cost carrier, GoAir also saw its market share spike in the absence of Jet Airways. The Wadia Group owned carrier had started with a market share of 8.7%, but by the end of the year, GoAir had a market share of 10.4%. The only private full-service carrier in India, Vistara had also upped its market share from 3.8% to 6.1% in this time period after the exit of Jet Airways. AirAsia India also witnessed a rise of 7% in its market share up from 5.3%.
Jet Airways Slot Redistributed Amongst Airlines
This increase in market share by the airlines came because the slots owned by Jet Airways in the key Mumbai and Delhi airports were distributed to other airlines. For example, in Mumbai, SpiceJet bagged 76 slots of Jet, 54 were taken by Vistara, IndiGo got 52 and GoAir and AirAsia had 16 each. At Delhi, IndiGo got 40 slots, SpiceJet had 24, GoAir got 16 slots and 12 slots were given to Vistara and AirAsia. Also, Air India had a total of 24 slots from the roster at various airports.
