India’s domestic air passenger traffic surges 16% in August

On a sequential basis, total domestic air passenger traffic had risen by 12.43 per cent to 95.65 lakh in July. Data furnished by the civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed that passenger traffic during the January-August period grew by almost 17 per cent. 

“Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-August 2017 were 754.11 lakh as against 644.68 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 16.97 per cent,” the DGCA said in its monthly domestic traffic report. 

According to the data, low cost carrier SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF), a measure of capacity utilisation of the airline, at 94.5 per cent during August. 

SpiceJet was followed by budget passenger carriers AirAsia India with PLF at 85.8 per cent, GoAir at 85.4 per cent, IndiGo at 83.6 per cent and Vistara at 83.4 per cent. “The passenger load factor in the month of August 2017 has shown increasing trend compared to previous month due to beginning of festive season,” the monthly statistical analysis said. The data noted that IndiGo led the industry with 86.6 per cent punctuality rate (on time performance) at four major airports of Bangalore, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. It was followed by SpiceJet (78.7), Vistara (74.5) and GoAir (74.2). The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for August 2017 stood at 0.83 per cent. In addition, the data disclosed that a total of 599 passenger-related complaints were received last month. 

“The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of August 2017 has been around 0.62,” the aviation regulator said. The data revealed that IndiGo led the industry with the highest market share of 38 per cent, followed by Jet Airways (15.9), SpiceJet (14), Air India (13.2), and GoAir (8). AirAsia India had a market share of 4.3 per cent, followed by Vistara (3.7), JetLite (2.4) and Trujet (0.5).