By Nirbhay Kumar

Apr 20 (IANS): The country's largest carrier IndiGo is set to consolidate its position and rule the skies following the collapse of its rival Jet Airways.

"The biggest airline will gain the maximum, so IndiGo will corner the major chunk of the air traffic. It anyways has massive capacity expansion plans lined up for the coming months and years," said an industry executive.

Dhiraj Mathur, Partner, PwC, said that whoever brings more aircraft and crew will benefit the most.

IndiGo currently has a fleet of 200 aircraft and operates 1,400 daily flights connecting 53 domestic and 18 international destinations. The airline, which has 43.4 per cent market share in the domestic market, has very aggressive fleet expansion plans.

Going by the current market share and the capacity deployed in the domestic market, SpiceJet would be the next biggest gainer. Other airlines would gain in sequence as per their current fleet size and market share.

"Maybe after SpiceJet, other carriers such as Air India, Go Air, Vistara, Air Asia and others would come," said the executive quoted above.

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet is the second biggest player in the domestic market with its 13.7 per cent market share. It has a fleet of 48 Boeing 737s, 27 Bombardier Q-400s and one B737 freighter.

The airline on Thursday said that it would induct as many as 27 planes in a record time of less than two weeks.

Going by the fleet size and market share, Air India is likely to be the third biggest gainer, but aviation watchers doubted if airline would be able to add aircraft quickly to its fleet.

"The plan to lease more planes would first require board approval. Then tendering will happen and shortlisting will be done. The entire process may take quite some time. In that case, the benefits would be very limited," said an industry veteran.