Qantas, Virgin Log Record Number of Passengers in March

Australians continued to enjoy their passion for travel to domestic and foreign destinations which resulted in air carriers, Qantas and Virgin Australia, enjoying high passenger numbers for the month of March.

Qantas registered a 7 per cent increase in passengers. The growth in travel was reported also by Jetstar, Qantas' regional services and international operations. For the same month, Virgin logged a 6.7 per cent growth in number of passengers for its domestic and overseas routes. Domestic passengers grew 6.8 per cent and international travelers increased 5.9 per cent.

It is not only the number of passengers that improved for the third month of 2012, but also air traffic and capacity. Traffic, which is measured by revenue passenger kilometers rose by 6.8 per cent compared to the same month in 2011, while capacity jumped 14.4 per cent due to the roll out of wide-body Airbus A330s and the replacement of the Boeing 737-700s with 800s.

Virgin said that while the average number of passengers per jet went down 4.5 per cent to 76 per cent in March, it was fueled by the larger growth in seat capacity. To address this area, Virgin said it targeted higher-yielding corporate and regional markets.

"Virgin Australia has improved frequency share in key sectors to service the corporate market segment with a continued focus on yield and margin improvement," the air carrier said in a statement.

To make air passengers enjoy more their flight experience, Virgin is refurbishing the design of its premium economy seats in its Boeing 777 jets through a complete re-design of seat fabrics, carpets and curtain dividers. Seats at the business, premium economy and economy will be given extra padding, new fabrics and headrests using same leaf designs found in Virgin lounges and exclusively used for 777 aircraft.

The passenger number report of the largest and second-largest airlines in Australia came out on the same day that Roy Morgan Research released its Air Travel Report on Thursday on domestic and international travel plans of Aussies.

The report said Australians prefer to ride Qantas for their overseas holidays. For 2011, 15 per cent of the survey respondents used the flag carrier to reach their overseas holiday destinations, followed by Singapore Airlines (13 per cent), Emirates (11 per cent), Jetstar International (9 per cent) and AirAsia X (8 per cent).

Despite the number one rank of Qantas with Australian travelers, Roy Morgan Research International Director of Tourism Jane Ianniello pointed out that the flag carriers lost a large chunk of its passenger share to Singapore Airlines and Emirates whose satisfaction ratings are going up versus the opposite direction for Qantas.

Passenger dissatisfaction was particularly felt in the third quarter of 2011 when strikes hit Qantas, which led to the unpopular grounding of the air carrier's fleet that disrupted travel plans of thousands of Qantas loyal passengers.