Air India disputes study, says still No. 1 on foreign routes

State-run Air India has claimed it remains the market leader on foreign routes contesting a report of the India unit of Sydney-based Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) that assigned No 1 status to private carrier IndiGo. "The analysis done in your report to showcase IndiGo as largest carrier on international routes is flawed and misleading," the national carrier said in a letter to CAPA.

IANS has reviewed the letter sent on Monday disputing the parameters adopted by the top aviation consultancy firm. "This, of course, has been done by replacing ASKMs (available seat kilometres) which is a true measure of capacity deployment with seats offered," the airline further said.

Presenting a comparative scheduled capacity analysis on international routes, Air India has said that during September 2019, ASKMs per international flight of Air India have been 1.039 million compared to 0.486 million of IndiGo. "You will appreciate that above comparison does not include Air India Express, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India which had an ASKM share of 5.6 per cent during September, 2019," Air India has contended.

It has also stated that Air India flies to more destinations than the private carrier. In its report on IndiGo`s overview of international operations, CAPA has said that the private carrier has 10.3 per cent of its seats on international operations and 23.7 per cent of ASKs.

"The carrier now has the largest share of international seats to/from India," the aviation consultancy said.