April air traffic up by 25%

Thanks to the economic resurgence, domestic travellers are flying again. Last month saw 41.9 lakh people flying within the country, 24.7% higher than April 2009’s figure of 33.6 lakh. This April’s figure is even higher than preslowdown April 2008’s tally of 37.8 lakh. Since April is the beginning of travel season after the traditionally slow quarter of January-March, the industry is expecting huge growth in coming months. The massive shift towards budget flying – even by corporates – during the slowdown has helped LCCs complete their domination over Indian skies. Pure budget carriers lead the load factor charts, followed by Jet and Kingfisher that now have a majority of their flights in LCC avtars. Air India, that does not have a domestic LCC, saw the lowest occupancy – 73% in April. Naresh Goyal’s Jet Airways, which enjoys almost 26% market share, followed by Kingfisher at 21.4%, admitted that good times are back.