Wednesday, March 27, 2019

JET IMPACT

Air passenger traffic growth hits five-year low in February

Allirajan.M@timesgroup.com

Coimbatore:27.03.2019

The turbulence at Jet Airways seems to have had an adverse impact on the growth in air passenger traffic in the country.

The number of passengers travelling through domestic airways in February stood at 11.34 million, a 5.6% yearon-year (y-o-y) increase, the slowest pace of growth in a month in five years.

The number of departures for Jet Airways fell to 8,312 in February compared to 11,388 in January, data with DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) showed. This represented a 33.3% decrease on a y-o-y basis.

The number of hours flown by the airline declined to 15,013 in February compared to 20,674 in January.

Jet flew about 11.3 lakh passengers during February against 14.8 lakh passengers in the preceding month.

The number of passengers flown by the airline fell 27.7% on a y-o-y basis in February.

Jet Lite, the low-cost carrier of Jet Airways, also saw a fall in departures and number of passengers flown.

The cancellation rate among the listed players was the highest for Jet Airways

(2.31%) while the rate stood at 1.88% and 1.03% respectively for Indigo and SpiceJet.

The market share of Jet Airways fell to 10% in February compared to 11.9% in January on the back of many cancelled flights.

Incidentally, domestic air passenger traffic has been clocking double digit growth consistently on a monthly basis for nearly 4 ½ years.

“The grounding of aircraft by Jet Airways is the primary reason for the decline (in air passenger traffic),” said Gagan Dixit, vice president, Elara Capital.

“Airfares also went up by about 10% and this impacted demand,” he said.

Further, airlines that were offering discounts last year discontinued the practice now, Dixit, who tracks aviation and oil and gas companies, said.

India’s aviation market posted the fastest full-year domestic growth rate for the fourth consecutive year, with an 18.6% annual demand increase in 2018, according to IATA (International Air Transport Association).

Domestic demand was underpinned by robust economic expansion and increasing numbers of city pairs, particularly in India, which recorded its 50th consecutive month of double-digit annual growth in October, IATA had said.

The monthly ASK (available seat per kilometer) and RPK (revenue passenger per kilometer) have also fallen drastically in the last few months due to the lower growth rates in the domestic air circuits.

Domestic ASK had seen a significant rise by nearly doubling from 6 million to 12 million in 2 ½ years signifying an increase in flight fleet of domestic airlines and better connectivity.

“The domestic ASK has come down signifying low airplane demand in the domestic sector,” said Deepak Kumar and Dhwanik Shah, research analysts, Narnolia Financial Advisors.

ASK measures airplane’s carrying capacity available to generate revenue. It is calculated by multiplying the available seats for a given plane, by the number of kilometer’s the plane will be flying Similarly, RPK witnessed a sharp fall in February after growing for two consecutive years. RPK measures the number of kilometers travelled by paying passengers. It is calculated by multiplying number of paying passengers by distance travelled.

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