Kingfisher's market share falls to fifth position

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oi-Monika

By Monika Nihalani

Published: Monday, December 26, 2011, 13:42 [IST]

Vijay Mallya's cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines which used to be once India's second largest airline in terms of market share fell to the fifth position during November, government data showed today.

Kingfisher's market share stood at mere 14% beating only Go Air's 6.2%. The airline grounded many aircrafts and cut routes in November as it was unable to meet its maintenance cost. Kingfisher stood at third position in terms of market share previous month.

As per the government data showed on Thursday, Naresh Goyal's Jet group occupied the first place with 27.1% market share, followed by Rahul Bhatia's Indigo Airlines at second place with 19.8% market share. Air India took the third position with 17.4% market share, followed by Spice Jet at fourth place with 15.5% market share.

The Indian air traffic has registered a spectacular growth despite slowdown in India. Growth in domestic passengers grew by 17.6% to 5.5 crore during January – November 2011 period against 4.7 crore recorded same period last year. But the growth has failed to convert into profits for the airlines.

The Indian airline industry is facing lot of headwinds due to high taxes on fuel and airport charges. All domestic airlines had posted losses in their quarterly results except Indigo Airlines on the back of rising fuel and maintenance costs. They can't even raise fares due to rising competition.

Kingfisher, whose current debt stands at Rs 6,500 crore is struggling hard to raise funds to meet its day to day expenditure and banks are working with the airline to explore new ways to get the funds.

The airline aims to minimize its debt to Rs 3,500 crore through sale and lease back some of its aircrafts.

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