Domestic air traffic rose 25% in March

Average industry-wide passenger occupancy rose to 80.7% last month compared to 78.8% in March 2015

Domestic air traffic grew 25.25 per cent in March on a year-on-year basis as carriers flew 7.8 million passengers in the month. In the same month last year airlines carried 6.2 million passengers, according to the data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Thursday.

Average industry-wide passenger occupancy rose to 80.7 per cent last month compared to 78.8 per cent in March 2015. Travel demand remained strong as fares remain low due to weak oil crude pil prices. SpiceJet reported the highest load factor (91.1 per cent), followed by GoAir (86.6 per cent) and IndiGo (85.1 per cent).

IndiGo continued its leadership growing its market share to 38.4 per cent in March. The market share of IndiGo and GoAir showed growth on a month-on-month basis while it declined or remained flat for others.

Jet Airways along with JetLite was second with 20.2 per cent market share and national carrier Air India had a share of 14.7 per cent in March.

Both the Tata-group airlines AirAsia and Vistara had zero flight cancellations. Vistara also topped the on time performance at metro airports with 91.5 per cent on time flights.

"Air fares are stable as oil prices are down and that continues to drive passenger demand," said Sharat Dhall, president of online portal Yatra.com.

Air travel has been growing at 20 per cent in the past few months. Data from International Air Transport Association show that demand growth in India was the highest among Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia and the US.