With 28.2 per cent, Jet Airways-JetLite ranked No 1, followed by no-frills airlines IndiGo with 23.8 per cent and SpiceJet (17.7 per cent). Air India's share was down to 17.6 per cent, followed by GoAir (7.3 per cent) and Kingfisher (5.4 per cent).

The key gainers were IndiGo, which saw its seat factor rising from 76.5 per cent in March to 82 per cent in April from 76.5 per cent in March -- the highest in the industry -- and SpiceJet whose seat factor jumped to 80 per cent (second best in the industry) in April from 73 per cent in March.

Air India also registered the highest flight cancellations in the domestic sector at 5.2 per cent despite having no labour trouble in April. Kingfisher Airlines saw 3.3 per cent flight cancellations. The industry average for cancellations was 1.5 per cent. Low-cost carriers IndiGo and GoAir had the lowest cancellation rate of 0.1 per cent.

Air India's on time performance at six metro airports was the lowest at 79.7 per cent, followed closely by SpiceJet's 80.7 per cent and 81.2 per cent of Kingfisher Airlines.

Air India's passenger load factor, or average percentage of passengers carried on each flight, was the lowest among all other Indian carriers at 70.5 per cent, while IndiGo's was the best with 82 per cent.

Passenger traffic grew by 7.15 per cent between January and April with all domestic airlines carrying around 203.6 lakh passengers as against 190.02 lakh during the corresponding period last year.

Source: Business Line

New York: Some investors who thought they had bought Facebook shares at the opening of trading were left without knowing for hours whether they had received the shares.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the glitches in the trading of Facebook's initial public offering around the time of its scheduled debut Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

The glitches caused traders problems changing and canceling their orders. Nasdaq said around noon that it was "investigating an issue in delivering trade execution messages" for Facebook stock.

Technical glitches at Nasdaq had delayed the trading of Facebook's stock by half an hour.

The SEC will review the incident with Nasdaq "to determine its cause and steps that will be taken to address it," agency spokesman John Nester said.

Technical glitches at the Nasdaq Stock Market had already delayed the trading of Facebook's stock by half an hour. The stock, which was expected to start trading at 11 AM, opened at 11:32 AM at $42.05 and ended the day at $38.23.

Joseph Saluzzi, co-founder of broker Themis Trading, said it's understandable that a delay at the opening might occur with a large IPO like Facebook's. "The problem is when people don't know if they had bought or sold a certain number of shares and that affects how people manage risk," Saluzzi said.

Brokers who might have wanted to sell after the IPO was priced weren't sure if they had received a piece of the highly-anticipated offering from the online social networking phenomenon.

Nasdaq didn't respond to requests for comment, but the exchange posted a message on one of its websites telling investors who had problems buying or selling Facebook stock between 11:11 and 11:30 AM to call Nasdaq before 5 PM with their order information.

"Our intention is to reach resolution of those trades today through an offline matching process," Nasdaq said in a comment posted on its website. "If at the end of that process, a firm continues to have questions or concerns, the firm needs to submit a formal accommodation request to us through the normal channels."

In March, there was a far worse technical foul-up at the intended IPO of BATS Global Markets Inc., a Kansas-based company that competes with Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange in offering stock trading services.

BATS tried to list its stock on its own trading systems, but a series of snafus prevented the stock from ever opening for trading. The company wound up cancelling its IPO and its CEO, Joe Ratterman, issued a public apology.

Tata Steel forecasts improving global demand in spite of European woes, as the world's No.7 steelmaker reported a bigger-than-expected drop in quarterly profit after being squeezed by weak prices, lower volume and higher input costs.

The company, whose European operations account for two-thirds of its global capacity of about 28 million tonnes, reported consolidated net profit for its fiscal fourth quarter plunged 90 per cent.

In the same period last year, a one-off gain had boosted earnings.

We expect global steel consumption to improve but production may dip again, finance chief Koushik Chatterjee told reporters. Steel demand in emerging countries like India and China is growing, but in Europe it is expected to drop.

Tata Steel's volume in Europe is not expected to improve significantly before the end of 2012, said Karl-Ulrich Kohler, head of the company's European operations, given the market situation and ongoing work at a blast furnace in Britain.

Global crude output grew at a slower pace in 2011, and demand this year has been squeezed by the euro zone debt crisis and tight credit conditions in China, the world's biggest steel consumer and producer.

Last week, ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, said it saw strong demand from the U.S. and the demand environment had improved since November.

Earlier, world No. 3 POSCO and Japanese group Nippon Steel forecast an improvement in markets in the latter half of 2012, but warned of high raw material costs.

Shares in Tata Steel, valued at $7.3 billion, closed 1.5 per cent lower ahead of the earnings announcement. The stock is up about 19 per cent in 2012, outperforming a 4.5 per cent rise in the benchmark index.

... contd.

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Social media stocks knocked as Facebook debuts

Social media stocks, led by Zynga Inc, dropped in volatile trading as traders used the securities to hedge or bet against the day's star of the sector, Facebook Inc, which went public in a somewhat disappointing debut on Friday.

Social media stocks, led by Zynga Inc, dropped in volatile trading as traders used the securities to hedge or bet against the day's star of the sector, Facebook Inc, which went public in a somewhat disappointing debut on Friday.

Facebook shares rose 8.5% to USD 41.25 in afternoon trading. Analysts blamed the poorer-than-expected first-day showing of Facebook on the vast number of shares floated and market weakness.

Shares of Zynga, the leading social gaming company which gets much of its revenue from Facebook, fell more than 14% at one point, and were halted twice. Zynga was down 5.7% at USD 7.80 a share in afternoon trading, having earlier hit a low of USD 7.08, which triggered an automatic halt due to the fluctuation in its price.

Other social media stocks, including LinkedIn, Groupon, Pandora Media and Yelp, were also lower on Friday, with Groupon and Yelp losing more than 5%.

GSV Capital, a listed investment vehicle that bought Facebook shares before the IPO, slumped 14% to USD 13.87.

Some traders who can't short Facebook shares early may be betting against other social media stocks instead, according to Max Wolff, a senior analyst at GreenCrest Capital.

Zynga accounts for more than 10% of Facebook revenue, so traders may be focusing most on Zynga shares and options as an alternative to Facebook.

"Zynga options have high skew right now. That's the pricing difference between out-of-the-money puts and out-of-the-money calls," said Ralph Edwards, director, derivatives strategy at ITG. "This typically means people are looking for Facebook to kind of spill over to Zynga. If Facebook catches a cold, then Zynga gets pneumonia."