Domestic air traffic grows 23.2% to 86.72 lakh passengers in October

NEW DELHI: Continuing with the robust growth rate of over 23 percent, domestic airlines flew 86.72 lakh passengers in October while no-frills carrier IndiGo saw its market share surge to 42.6 percent during the same period.

Reflecting strong demand, the domestic passenger numbers rose 23.2 percent last month compared to 70.39 lakh people seen in September.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Oct 2016 were 813.70 lakh as against 660.60 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 23.18 percent," aviation regulator DGCA said in its report on domestic aviation sector for the month of October.


IndiGo cornered the largest market share in October at 42.6 per cent, higher than 40 per cent seen in September. During the same period, national carrier Air India saw its pie decline to 13 percent from 14.7 percent recorded in the previous month.

Apart from Air India, the market share of Jet Airways and GoAir fell last month to 14.7 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.

SpiceJet's share rose marginally to 12.9 per cent while that of AirAsia India inched up to 2.7 percent.

According to DGCA, load factor in October almost "remained constant compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season".

SpiceJet registered the highest load factor - an indicator of seat occupancy — at 91.9 percent, followed by IndiGo (84.9 per cent) and GoAir (84.4 percent).

When it came to On Time Performance (OTP), SpiceJet was against on top with 86.1 per cent. At the second and third positions were Vistara (83.6 percent) and IndiGo (81.2 percent), respectively.

Last month, the overall cancellation rate stood at 0.72 per cent, with Air Carnival clocking the highest at 8.74 percent, followed by Trujet (6.79 percent), Air Costa (2.52 percent) , Air India (1.29 per cent) and IndiGo (0.79 percent).

As many as 790 passenger-related complaints were received by the local airlines in October.Most complaints pertained to customer service, flight problem and baggage.