India's domestic air passenger traffic up 25% in January: DGCA data

In December 2016, the passenger traffic rose by 23.91%

India's domestic air passenger traffic zoomed up by 25.13% during last month to 95.79 lakh, official data showed on Friday.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January 2017 were 95.79 lakh as against 76.55 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 25.13%," the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in its statistical analysis.

According to the data furnished by DGCA, domestic air passenger traffic had increased by 23.91% during December to 95.52 lakh from 77.09 lakh during the corresponding month last year.

In November 2016, the passenger traffic rose by 22.45% to 89.66 lakh.

The data showed that low-cost carrier (LCC) SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF) during the month under review at 93.6%.

In terms of PLF, SpiceJet was followed by budget passenger carriers GoAir at 90.8% and IndiGo at 90%.

Furthermore, the data showed that SpiceJet led the industry with 71.6% punctuality rate at four major airports of Bangalore, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

It was followed by IndiGo (71.2), GoAir (60.6), Jet Airways and JetLite (59.4), Air India (56.8) and Vistara (53) on schedule.

"SpiceJet has excelled on all operational parameters yet again and emerged as the country's most punctual airline for the fourth successive month," Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director, SpiceJet was quoted as saying in a statement.

"We have had the best on-time performance in tough weather conditions and will continuously strive to better ourselves."

In contrast, the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for January 2017 stood at 1.10%.

Besides, the data disclosed that a total of 877 passenger related complaints was received last month.

"The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of January 2017 has been 0.9," the aviation regulator said.

The data revealed that IndiGo led the industry with the highest market share of 39.8% followed by Jet Airways (15.5), Air India (14.1), SpiceJet (12.8) and GoAir (8.2).

Vistara reported a market share of 3.2%, followed by AirAsia India (3), JetLite (2.5), Air Costa (0.5), TruJet (0.3) and Air Carnival (0.1).