Domestic Air Passenger Traffic Rises, To 1.01 Crore In August

Indian airlines carried 1.01 crore passengers in August, reflecting a more than 4 per cent growth in domestic air traffic compared to the previous month. The carriers flew 97.05 lakh passengers in July. "Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-August 2022 were 770.70 lakh as against 460.45 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering annual growth of 67.38 per cent and monthly growth of 50.96 per cent," DGCA said on Friday.

In August, IndiGo remained the country's largest airline with a market share of 57.7 per cent, followed by Vistara with a share of 9.7 per cent, which was lower than 10.4 per cent registered in July, as per DGCA data. IndiGo's market share declined from 58.8 per cent in July. The country's new airline Akasa, which started operations on August 7, garnered a 0.2 per cent market share.

Last month, Air Asia was on top in terms of On-Time Performance (OTP) while SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor. After being severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the country's civil aviation sector is on the recovery path. The data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed that Go First's market share rose to 8.6 per cent in August from 8.2 per cent in July. During the same period, the share of Air India marginally increased to 8.5 per cent from 8.4 per cent.

SpiceJet saw its market share dip to 7.9 per cent in August from 8 per cent in July, and during the same period, the share of Air Asia jumped to 5.8 per cent from 4.6 per cent. As per the data, the market share of Alliance Air remained flat at 1.2 per cent in August. In terms of OTP, Air Asia was on top at 93.3 per cent followed by Vistara (91.4 per cent), Air India (87.9 per cent) and IndiGo (85.5 per cent). The OTP of SpiceJet was 79.1 per cent, Go First 74.9 per cent and Alliance Air 72.1 per cent.

OTP for scheduled domestic airlines is computed for four metro airports -- Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor at 84.6 per cent in August while that of Vistara and IndiGo stood at 84.4 per cent and 78.3 per cent, respectively. The passenger load factor, an indicator of seat occupancy, was 81.6 per cent for Go First, 73.6 per cent for Air India, 74.9 per cent for Air Asia and 65.5 per cent for Alliance Air.

(PTI)