Virgin Australia, Jetstar lead passenger growth in April
Growth in Jetstar domestic services restored the Qantas Group share of the market to the dry side of its 65% line-in-the-sand during April, but Virgin Australia grew its market share more than any other carrier during the month, compared to a year earlier.
The statistics released today by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics show that in April this year the total Qantas group domestic market share was 65.8% compared to 64.8% in April 2011.
The Qantas contribution slipped by 0.3% to 43.2%, while Jetstar’s share grew by 1.3% to 22.6%.
Virgin Australia’s share in the month, compared to a year earlier, rose 2.2% to 29.3%.
The largest drop in market share in the month was Tiger, down 3.1% to 3.0% reflecting the restrictions applied to its number of flight sectors by CASA during the month in the aftermath of the 2011 grounding.
The figures show that is was Qantas which was trapped in the middle on this occasion, being outperformed by Virgin Australia at the full service level, and its Jetstar subsidiary at the low-service level.
But, it is only one month’s figures, and recent disclosures by Qantas indicate that a fare and capacity contest is about the break out on a large scale.
The figures also show signs of stagnation in total domestic air traffic growth in the largest airports, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, strong growth in the west and north in the resource zones, and weakness in the Sunshine Coast and Newcastle figures.
However the validity of April as an overall indicator is lessened by the Tiger figures, which imply that not all of its customers flew on competing carriers where the low cost carrier was unable to meet previous demand levels.
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It’s interesting to see Jetstar’s domestic share is about half of Qantas domestic! I wonder what is Jetstar domestic’s available seat kilometre when compare to Qantas domestic (more than half or less than half?!)
The other thing is that when would Virgin be able to get towards 35% market share? I also recall Breet Godfrey stated a few years back that Virgin was comtemplating whether they would set-up an ultra low cost carrier… I wonder if that would still be in their agenda (perhaps they can do it easily by buying out Tiger’s Australian operation?)