The total passengers who traveled by air in the second quarter had increased to 135 lakhs when compared to the passengers who traveled in the first quarter which stood at 118 lakhs. This increase in the number of travelers has been welcomed with open arms, as it is a great improvement after the economic recession.

The largest chunk of air passengers flew with Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite with 35.28 lakh passengers. Kingfisher stood in the second place with 28.42 lakh passengers and the third place was occupied by Air India (domestic) with close to 23.69 lakh passengers choosing to fly with them. These official figures were released on Thursday.

Not to be left out from the race, IndiGo and SpiceJet came in fourth and fifth with 21.48 lakh and 17.7 lakh passengers respectively followed by GoAir who had 7.88lakh passengers flying with them. However due to lack of adequate aircrafts in their fleet Paramount just has 45,000 passengers who chose to fly with them.

Indian Airlines, in the month of June has services close to 45.04 lakh passengers who chose to fly with them, the report said. Also, JetLite and Jet Airways had combined passenger strength of 12 lakh people who chose to fly with them.

Thus in the second quarter the Jet airways and JetLite occupied 26.2 per cent followed by Kingfisher with 21.1 per cent and Air India (domestic) with 17.6 per cent of the share of carriers. IndiGo and SpiceJet were at 17.6 per cent and 13 per cent respectively and GoAir and Paramount were at 5.8 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively.

The no frill airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo topped the list on the number of seats that were filled by the airlines and were at 88.5 per cent and 90.7 per cent respectively. Paramount came in third with 86.8 per cent followed by Kingfisher who was at 85.1 per cent and GoAir at 84 per cent and JetLite and Jet Airways at 83.6 per cent and 72.3 per cent respectively and lastly, Air India at 72.3 per cent.

Jet ite and Jet Airways has the maximum number of complaints logged against them. The statistics showed that close to 4 complaints were lodged per 10,000 customers in JetLite and 9.2 complaints per 10,000 for Jet Airways in the month of June. Air India was the only carrier who had the least number of complaints with 1 complaint for every 10,000 passengers.

A total of 1,673 complaints were received in total by these domestic airlines in June which took the industry average to 3.7 complaints for every10,000 passengers.

Chief economic advisor to the finance ministry Kaushik Basu said on Friday that the much-talked about food price inflation will come down by month end and wholesale price inflation would be in the range of 5-6% by March 2011. He also said that the country’s economic growth would be close to 9% during the first quarter, resulting in boosting the growth percentage for the fiscal 2010-11.

“It is reasonable to predict that the food and price inflation in two weeks, i.e. by July 29 will be substantially lower than it is now,” said Mr. Basu while speaking at a media briefing.

However, he said that an efficient food production and procurement plan should be in place to ease the supply-side pressure on food prices. “Though inflation has gone down and food prices have flattened, there is no denying that we have to work on food production across the board and especially in some items where India is a major consumer,” he said.

Mr. Basu said that core inflation may take longer to come down to comfortable levels. While food inflation has reduced substantially since last November, non-food inflation is climbing up steadily. After decreasing for two straight weeks, food inflation went up from 12.63% the previous week to 12.81% in the week ending July 3. However, this is much lower than above-21% inflation of November 2009. Core inflation is rising steadily, registering 6.58% in May and 8.6% in June.

On the RBI move to implement further monetary tightening, he said that it will boost unemployment. “Sucking out money from the system may curb inflation but hurt growth,” he said.

Mr. Basu said that the country’s economic growth for the current fiscal may well go beyond the government’s projection of 8.5%. “Right now I believe growth will be faster than 8.5% this fiscal. In the first quarter it may well be around 9%,” he said.

Infosys Technologies, the leader of Indian IT industry, released figures for the first quarter on Tuesday. In the June-ending quarter, the IT hotshot’s net profit dropped despite rise in revenues due to rupee appreciation and increasing wages. This resulted in its share prices taking a tumble on Tuesday, bringing down with it other IT stocks.

The IT major posted revenue of Rs 6,198 crore for the quarter, up 13.3% from Q1 of last fiscal, when the revenue was Rs 5,472 crore. However, the net profit took a beating, from Rs 1,525 crore to Rs 1,488 crore, a drop of 2.4%. Operating margin too witnessed a decline of 1.8%.

Despite profits dipping, the company is optimistic about the deal pipeline and customer spends in the coming days. Though the increase in revenue is the highest since Q2 of 2007-08, the company conceded that there are hurdles in the path ahead, the most vital being the uncertainty in Europe and its impact on global economy.

“There are clouds in the horizon. I hope they are only rain clouds and will not bring cyclones. Anyway, we are famous for weathering all kinds of storms,” said Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO, Infosys. “While the global economic environment remains uncertain, we continue to see greater demand for services from our clients. The challenge for the industry is to enhance investment to grow the business, and yet be cautious.”

The company has raised its dollar revenue guidance from 16-18% to 19-21%. Infosys expects its revenue for the next quarter to be in the range of $1,413-1,427 million, up 22.4%-23.75% on year-on-year basis. The revenue outlook for the whole year is in the range of $5.72-5.81 billion.

On Thursday, Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest automobile manufacturer and retailer reported a 17.28 per cent growth in their sales at 88.091 units when compared to the numbers for the same month during the previous year.

In June last year Maruti Suzuki India had reportedly sold close to 75,812 units. As against 61,773 units that Maruti Suzuki India had sold in the Indian market in June 2009, they showed a growth of 17.87 per cent by selling 72,812 units this June. The statement also added that there was a huge increase in exports, from 13,336 units last year in June to 15,279 this year reporting a growth of 14.57 per cent.

When compared to the last years sales for the quarter April-June, Maruti Suzuki’s sales has increased from 2, 26,729 units to 2, 83,324 units this year recording a 24.96 percent growth.

When compared to the sales in the first quarter of the previous year 2009-10, the Sales in the Indian market during the first quarter of the year 2010-11 had shown an increase from 1,97,415 units to 2,42,887 units with a growth of 23.03 pr cent.

The company has stated that the total exports for the first quarter increased by with the 37.94 per cent the sales volume increase from 29,314 units to 40,437 units.

The statement also said that the Maruti Suzuki’s bread and butter brand M800 showed a decline is sales this June by 14.27 per cent with a fall in the sales volume from 2,438 units in June 2009 to 2,090 units in June 2010.

However Maruti Suzuki India has witnessed close to 11.40 per cent growth in the A2 segment which comprises of WagonR, A-Star, Estilo, Alto, Ritz and Swift. The growth in volumes had increased from 46,156 units last year-ago month to 51,418 units last month, this year.

The company also stated that there has been a tremendous increase in the sales of its A3 segment sales too which comprises of the brands DZiRE and SX4. The company has shown a 32.50 per cent increase with the volumes being sold having increased from 6,099 in the corresponding period a year ago to 8,0881 units this year.

On the whole, the total passenger car sales has shown an increase of 16.11 per cent for Maruti Suzuki India, with volumes being sold ranging from 61,583 units in the same month last year to 71,503 units in June this year.