While several domestic airlines ramped up their operations to fill Jet Airways created a void in the previous few months, the same has not spelt much success in terms of air passenger growth. For the July month, the passenger volume was up by only 3% on-year and though the July quarter is a seasonally slow time for carriers, a muted capacity expansion could also be one of the reasons for the subdued growth, a recent report by ICRA said. Also, even when a slew of domestic and international flights was launched in the past few months, most of them were international flights.
“Indigo and SpiceJet together accounted for about 62.8% of the domestic airline industry capacity during June 2019 … However, the addition has been higher on the international routes than domestic, thereby impacting the overall domestic industry capacity addition,” Kinjal Shah, Vice President and Co-Head, Corporate Sector Ratings, ICRA, said.
