NEW DELHI: With the aviation sector continuing to see a spurt in traffic, many domestic airlines posted good growth as they ferried 78.72 lakh passengers in March with no-frills carrier IndiGo carrying most passengers during the same period.
While the overall passenger growth stood at around 5.3 per cent, the market share of IndiGo jumped to 38.4 per cent in March, followed by Jet Airways at 17.6 per cent and Air India (14.7 per cent).
Latest data from aviation regulator DGCA released today showed that local airlines carried 78.72 lakh passengers last month compared to 74.76 lakh in February. Over the past several months, more number of people have been travelling by air. In terms of Passenger Load Factor (PLF) — an indicator of filled seats — SpiceJet was on top with 91.1 per cent, followed by GoAir (86.3 per cent), IndiGo (85.1 per cent), AirAsia (82.7 per cent) and Air Costa (82.1 per cent). Among other airlines, the PLF of Jet Airways was at 79.1 per cent while that of JetLite and Air India stood at 77 per cent and 75.7 per cent respectively. According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), PLF of airlines slightly decreased last month, primarily due to the end of tourist season. Except for IndiGo, GoAir and Trujet, rest of the carriers saw their market share either decline or remain flat in March. IndiGo’s market share rose to 38.4 per cent compared to 36.8 per cent in February while that of GoAir rose to 8.3 per cent from 8 per cent during the same period. Market share of Jet Airways fell to 17.6 per cent from 18.4 per cent. Air India saw its share drop to 14.7 per cent last month from 15.4 per cent seen in February. In the case of SpiceJet, the market share slipped to 12.8 per cent in March from 13.1 per cent in the previous month. Start-up carriers AirAsia and Vistara’s market share remained unchanged at 2.2 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively in March. “Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-March 2016 were 230.03 lakh as against 185.46 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 24.03 per cent,” DGCA said. The figures are based on passengers carried by 11 airlines — Air India, Jet Airways, IndiGo, JetLite, SpiceJet, GoAir, Air Asia, Vistara, Air Costa, Air Pegasus, and Trujet. Meanwhile, the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines stood at 1.29 per cent in March. “During March 2016, a total of 737 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of March 2016 has been 0.9,” DGCA said. — PTI
