Air India has clarified Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) that when it comes to the comparison with Indian airlines they are still the market leader in case of flying on international routes.
The response from the airline came after CAPA, a consultancy firm, stated “IndiGo now has the largest share of international seats to/from India” in a report on August 31.
Interestingly, the national carrier, Air India’s capacity deployment on international routes is currently almost double than that of the number-two position holder IndiGo.
Besides, Air India operates with its own aircraft to 42 international destinations whereas IndiGo operates only to 21 international destinations.
Air India wrote an e-mail to CAPA in a response to their report.
The e-mail stated, “Comparative scheduled capacity analysis on international routes, the national carrier has 16.7% share in September when measured in terms of available seat kilometres (ASKMs).”
But according to CAPA’s report, in the week commencing from August 26, Air India had 11.4% share of the total international seat capacity to or from India.
CAPA also stated that, in the week commencing from August 26, IndiGo had 11.8 per cent share of total international seat capacity to or from India. But as per the mail sent by Air India, IndiGo is at number two position on international routes and it has 8.6 per cent share in ASKM terms in September.
On their reply to CAPA report, Air India said, “The analysis done in your (CAPA) report to showcase IndiGo as 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.”
According to the e-mail, in September Air India and IndiGo has scheduled passenger capacity on international routes of 3.73 million ASKMs and 1.86 million ASKMs respectively.
Under ASKMs, the total passenger capacity of an airline is measured and it is calculated by multiplying the total number of available seats for passengers with the total number of kilometres flown by those seats.
