32% increase Air Deccan passenger in May,2007

Kolkata, Jun 6(UNI) Air Deccan, India's one of the largest low cost airlines, announced that it has recorded a 32 per cent increase in the number of passengers in May 2007 compared to corresponding period in 2006.

A company release said that the airline carried 7,04,043 passengers in May 2007 as compared to 5,33,376 in May 2006. The average load factor in last month this year remained high at 85 per cent.

In the same period last year the airline had 250 daily flights and today the figure has risen to 350 flights a day registering a 40 per cent growth. The airline today provides the widest connectivity in India connecting 65 destinations as against 55 cities last May.

Air Deccan has flown over 11 million passengers since its inception in the year 2003.

Air Deccan Chief Revenue Officer Samyukth Sridharan said, ''This growth in passenger traffic has largely been driven by rapid route and capacity expansion by Air Deccan. We have added 100 new flights and 10 new destinations to our network map since May last year increasing the daily seat capacity by 34 per cent.'' Like last year, this year too Air Deccan observed 95-100 per cent load factor on several sectors like Kolkata - Hyderabad, Delhi-Bhopal, Chennai -Trivandrum, Ahmedabad - Mumbai etc.

Unconventional sectors like Bhopal - Jabalpur, Mumbai - Kolhapur, Hyderabad - Rajahmundry which are not serviced by any other airline also witnessed above 90 per cent loads in May.

UNI