New Delhi: International Air Transport Association (IATA) Tuesday said that India’s domestic market increased by a whooping 26.3 percent last month as a result of price stimulation.
"Indian domestic traffic spiked 26.3 percent in September compared to a year ago. Whereas previous improvements in growth rates potentially were attributable to revived confidence over the new business-supportive government, the strong increase in September was owing to market stimulation measures introduced by carriers," IATA said in a statement.
According to IATA, India's domestic capacity rose 7.5 percent in the month under review compared to September 2013.
“Overall, demand for passenger travel is growing in line with expectations. We saw, however, some shifting of the sources of that growth in September, largely driven by economic factors. The strengthening of the US and Asian economies was offset by weakness in Europe and Latin America,” said Tony Tyler, director general and chief executive, IATA.
“The three big stories in September were Europe, Russia and India.”
Data furnished by the civil aviation ministry, showed that the domestic air passenger traffic increased by 27.82 percent in September to 58.22 lakh passengers - up from 45.55 lakh ferried in the corresponding month last year.
According to data furnished by the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), on year-on-year basis there was an increase of over 7.55 percent in the passenger traffic.
"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Sep 2014 were 491.47 lakh as against 465.95 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 7.55 percent," DGCA said in a statement.
The data showed that low-cost carrier IndiGo achieved the highest market share at 32.8 percent followed by SpiceJet at 18.6 percent, Jet Airways at 16.7 percent, Air India at 16.6 percent, GoAir at 9.2 percent and JetLite at 4.1 percent.
Regional carrier Air Costa reported a market share of 1.1 percent and AirAsia India at 0.9 percent.