Kingfisher Red pips JetLite in terms of number of passengers

Kingfisher Airlines and its low-cost Kingfisher Red together stole a march over Jet Airways-JetLite, by carrying the highest number of passengers in January, even though the total passenger traffic recorded a marginal increase since December.

The total number of passengers carried by domestic carriers rose from 33.23 lakh in December to 33.26 lakh last month, official figures released today said.

Kingfisher Airlines and its subsidiary kingfisher Red, former Air Deccan, carried 9.19 lakh passengers in January, beating Jet Airways-JetLite which together flew 8.37 passengers last month.

Air India Express carried 5.55 lakh passengers on its domestic route network, the statistics showed. Till December last year, JetLite has been leading the Indian airlines in terms of the number of passengers carried.

Among the low-cost carriers, IndiGo led the way by flying 4.57 lakh air travellers, followed by SpiceJet with 3.93 lakh, JetLite 2.1 lakh and the remaining less than one lakh each.

As with the actual numbers of passengers carried, Kingfisher Red led by the percentage share among the carriers with 27.6 per cent, followed by 17.9 by JetLite and 16.7 by Air India Express.