The strong economic recovery in India has given wings to Indians. March, a traditionally weak travel month due to exams, saw an impressive 21.2% growth in domestic air travel with 39 lakh fliers taking to skies compared to a figure of 32.2 lakh in the same period last year. Also the January-March quarter saw a robust 20.5% growth, with 1.2 crore people flying within the country, while less than a crore flew in same quarter, 2009.

The growth since June 2009 (since when the negative growth got reversed) was led by mainly by budget flying. The combined market share of pure LCCs (low-cost carriers) like IndiGo, SpiceJet, JetLite and Go Air is close to 40%. With Jet and Kingfisher now deploying almost 70-80% of their domestic fleet on budget brands like Jet Airways Konnect and Kingfisher Airlines Booking, the share of LCC is close to 70% now. National carrier Air India (domestic) with a 17.8% share is the only airline without a domestic LCC and now finds leading budget carrier IndiGo closely snapping at its heels.

The lean travel month of March saw passenger load factors of airlines going down from impressive 80-90% highs in the December to February. Big players saw their loads in the range of 74% (IndiGo) to 66.5% (AI-domestic). Pure LCCs enjoyed the highest loads with Jet and Kingfisher remaining above 70% due to a huge deployment of their planes on budget segment.