... have a tale to tell.

The traffic statistics for domestic operations are fascinating and startling, especially compared to the situation a year ago.



It appears that, besides each airlines' own organic growth, everyone's gained from the Fat One's folly, except for Jet. And even if Jet gained from that, the exodus of passengers (that they effectuated through Jetuna Matata) negated any of those gains, and then some.

I'm not exactly a maths superstar (never passed a single exam without cheating), so I'm quite capable of having messed up the numbers, but in absolute terms Jet look even worse than they do in marketshare.

Whilst all other airlines saw passenger numbers grow or stay flat, Jet went from 24,8% of 5,400,000 to 24,7% of 4,555,000. Which is nearly 215,000 fewer passengers in October 2012 compared with October 2011. Basically, the number that Indigo gained.

** And I say JetZophrenia, because it includes Jet Airways, JetLite, Jet Airways Konnect, JetKonnect, JetKonnect (9W), JetKonnect (S2) and whatever else I may have missed.

very interesting....i would have guessed indigo would be the biggest gainer from the fall of kingfisher but between 9w & ai i expected 9w would have gotten a larger share....guess i was wrong....

Interesting: In terms of absolute numbers, the market has shrunk by 845k, but 6E and AI have made impressive gains. AI gains are impressive because available domestic capacity has actually reduced mainly because some A320's have been redeployed internationally or on miliary charters.

THe gen feeling we get is that after KF's demise, a lot of passengers came back to try AI for the first time in years and noticed the improvements in service levels. One friend of mine, a senior manager with an IT company in Hyderabad, recently flew AI on my recomendation after a gap of almost 6 years. He was so impressed with the service levels, that not only has he dumped JP (he was Gold) but shifted to FLying Returns of AI! He has also advised his company to shift their corporate flying to AI: airline is offering some kind of deal where if you give them XX rupees business in X months, they will cash refund a certain Y amount. Pretty creative i thought!

on HYD-BLR, a route their company uses often as shuttle, Jet was almost all props, while AI has 3 flights on route all of which are A320 with IFE and all that. When people sit down and evaluate, i guess all these things become essential?

the gain in ic can also be attributed that about 8 320's were converted to all economy doing atleast 6 sectors a day and the seats increased by 24 per a/c. thats an increase of about 30k in a month. so those numbers do make sense because of that. and the fact that they gained from kingfisher. however, knowing everyone is charging decent amount as fares, a comparision of load factors would actually indicate who has gained the maximum.

Honestly, I don't think Indian Airlines have improved that much to lure people away from Jet or any other airline. If you ask me, they have stayed the same, which was perfectly fine to start with. I never thought of them as bad, just less flashy than the new bachhas.

I've happily been flying IC over the years - including a near-perfect short flight to Ahmedabad recently - and I honestly haven't noticed any major improvements. If anything, since AI got their fat claws into IC they have made some baffling scheduling decisions.

The term bad was used largely for Air India, and, as a result of the merger, the whole entity is called Air India, so peoples' image of the domestic operation (IC) gets translated into something positive for the Fat Ugly Duchess too.

I am even more convinced that Indian Airlines most definitely married down and Air India only gained by hooking it up with IC.

The big story is Jet's decline, rather than the others' improvement. Doubly so seeing the speed and extent of the decline. And they only have themselves to blame. Partly because of their laundry list of eff ups, and partly because they unintentionally made it okay to fly LCC for so many people who wouldn't have.