Air India Pushed to Fourth Position in Number of Flights Operared

Air India-Now Fourth Largest

The national carrier of India, Air India has been pushed to the fourth position in terms of numbers of  total number of flights operated. As per the latest aviation  data Air India has operated less number of domestic and international flights last year than its competitors, with  figures showing that its market share has dwindled to 17.1 per cent of the total flights.As per the latest data Air India and its subsidiaries put together  stands at the fourth position in terms of its market share ans ranks after  the airlines Jet Airways, Kingfisher and IndiGo Airlines.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also indicated the reasons for dismal performance of  Air India is also due to the declining route network. As to the overall data, all Indian carriers jointly operated a total of 5,25,504 flights on the domestic network during the year 2010, Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite flew 1,42,101 flights and Kingfisher Airlines operated 1,20,362 flights, leaving AI at the third spot with only 1,01,352 flights.

 As per the latest data,  Air India withdrew Airlines Booking services from at least 32 "profitable routes"  since 2009 late 2009 and thereby giving a competitive advantage to its private competitors, both domestic, international and  foreign airlines. Incidentally most of the lucrative routes were  promising Gulf and Middle East sector.  As for its competitors, Of the total 32 routes from which the national carrier withdrew its services in over  the year, Jet Airways was operating on 11 routes and Kingfisher on 6 and further IndiGo and SpiceJet had also launched their services on these routes.Many Gulf based airlines are also operating profitably on these 32 routes and they are Emirates Airlines , Etihad Airways,Air Arabia, Qatar Airways, Oman Air and Bahrain Air.