Akasa Air beats SpiceJet in domestic market share for second straight month

Indian airlines carried as many as 121 lakh passengers in July, up 31.72% year-on-year (YoY) as against 97.05 lakh passengers carried in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to the latest data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Akasa Air became the fifth largest airline by cornering a market share of 5.2%, defeating the beleaguered low-cost carrier SpiceJet. In contrast to this, SpiceJet had a market share of 4.2%. This is the second consecutive month that Akasa Air defeated SpiceJet in terms of domestic market share.

Akasa Air carried as many as 6.24 lakh passengers whereas SpiceJet carried 5.04 lakh passengers in July. In June, while Akasa Air cornered a market share of 4.9%, SpiceJet's market share declined to 4.4%. The market share of Akasa Air has increased from 2.8% in January to 5.2% in July. In contrast to this, the market share of SpiceJet has witnessed a consistent decline from 7.3% in January to 4.2% in July.

The development comes as the Gurugram-based SpiceJet is facing a double whammy of financial distress as well as legal trouble of the company's lessors seeking repossession of aircraft over the past several months.

Notably, between January and July this year, domestic airlines carried 881.94 lakh passengers as against 669.54 lakh passengers in the same period last year.

IndiGo continued to helm its position as the market leader in July, by cornering a market share of 63.4%. In June, the Gurugram-based airline cornered a market share of 63.2%. The airline carried 76.75 lakh passengers during the month under review. In FY24, IndiGo's market share increased from 57.5% in April to 63.4% in July.

This was followed by Tata Group's Air India, which cornered a market share of 9.9% in July by carrying 11.98 lakh passengers in July. In FY24, Air India’s market share increased from 8.6% in April to 9.9% in July.

Other Tata Group airlines Vistara and Air Asia cornered a market share of 8.4% and 7.5%, respectively in July. Vistara carried 10.20 lakh passengers, whereas Air Asia carried 9.01 lakh passengers in July. In June, Vistara cornered a market share of 8.1%, whereas Air Asia cornered a market share of 7.5%.

During the month under review, a total of 349 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for July has been around 0.29.