The first four months of 2003 have seen a further erosion in the marketshare of national carrier Indian Airlines. For the period January-April 2003, its figures dipped to 39.5 per cent from 42.5 per cent in the calendar year 2002, according to official sources.

Marketshare figures are based on the total number of passengers flown by an airline.

The comparative revenue figures for Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Air Sahara were not available for the period in consideration.

Things look rosy for rival Jet Airways, with its marketshare inching up to 49.8 per cent in January-April 2003 from 48.7 per cent in the year 2002. Air Sahara's marketshare rose to 10.7 per cent during January-April 2003, against 8.6 per cent in the entire previous year.

Domestic aviation has, over all, something to cheer about with passenger traffic growing 10.1 per cent in January-April 2003 from the same period last year. Although Indian Airlines has registered a minor increase of 1.4 per cent, Jet's passenger traffic grew 7.6 per cent and that of Air Sahara 90.6 per cent.

The total number of passengers carried by the three carriers between January and April 2003 stood at 4.4 million. Of this, 1.74 million passengers were carried by Indian Airlines and its 100 per cent subsidiary, Alliance Air.

Jet flew 2.19 million passengers and Air Sahara 470,000. In 2002, Air Sahara flew 1.11 million passengers, 84.3 per cent more than the 600,000 carried in the previous year.

Indian Airlines, on the other hand, carried 5.48 million passengers, a 9.7 per cent drop from 6.06 million in 2001. Passenger traffic of Jet Airways increased 9.8 per cent to 6.28 million in 2002.