Air India says I am the Maharaja, not IndiGo; refutes report of losing international crown

The state-run carrier Air India is still the market leader to fly on international routes with more than double the capacity of rival IndiGo, the airline said on Monday. The clarity on the matter comes a day after a report said that the Maharaja has been pipped by IndiGo as the later “now has the largest share of international seats to/from India”, a consultancy firm, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), said in its report on August 31. Air India reportedly wrote an email to the aviation consultancy firm and said that the carrier has 16.7% share of international flyers in September when measured in terms of available seat kilometres (ASKMs), news agency PTI reported.

“The analysis done in your (CAPA) report to showcase IndiGo as the largest carrier on international routes is flawed and misleading. This, of course, has been done by replacing ASKMs which is a true measure of capacity deployment with seats offered,” PTI quoted Air India as saying. Under the ASKMs, an airline’s total capacity to carry passengers is calculated by multiplying the total number of seats available to a total number of kilometres flown. However, IndiGo is a market leader in the domestic segment with about half of the market share by passenger flown in July, according to India’s aviation watchdog DGCA.

An earlier CAPA report had said that Air India must leverage the opportunity on overseas routes as the capacity is constrained there, while the domestic space remains crowded with competition. The same also becomes relevant after the exit of Air India’s biggest competitor on international routes — the Naresh Goyal-founded Jet Airways.

Meanwhile, a recent report by ICRA also said that the passenger growth on domestic routes has been slower because many airlines opted for international expansion rather than ramping up domestic operations. Many airlines have introduced a slew of international flights after Jet Airways crisis, sensing potential in the burgeoning interest for international travelling.

Air India