AI, IndiGo flyers worst hit by flight delays in Jan: DGCA

Passengers of Air India and no-frill carrier IndiGo, which has best on-time performance record among the domestic airliners, were most affected due to delays of flights by over two hours in January, according to the DGCA data.

The number of Air India passengers affected due to flight delays beyond two hours stood at 96,232 in January while of IndiGo was 75,034, the monthly domestic air traffic report released by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.

Also, as many as 11,666 passengers of private carriers Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite were also affected after their flights were reported late by more than two hours.

The DGCA norms make it mandatory for the airlines to submit data on number of cases of denied boarding, cancellations and delays along with the status on a monthly basis.

As per the report, while Air India provided facilities such as refreshments, refunds (where passenger desired), rescheduling of flights besides giving a compensation of Rs 1.04 crore to the aggrieved flyers, IndiGo provided only refreshments to the passengers of the delayed flights.

It may be noted here that the domestic passenger traffic grew by 21.33 per cent in January this year as compared to figures in the same month a year ago. In January 2015, all Indian carriers ferried a total of 62.45 lakh passengers as compared to 57.47 lakh in January 2014.

In all, a total number of 2,11,326 passengers of various airlines suffered at the airports in the country on account of denied boarding, cancellations and delays, the report said.

Of these, as many as 1,89,497 passengers were affected due to the delays of more than two hours, while those affected due to the flight cancellations by various airlines stood at 19,869 in January 2015.

Also, Jet Airways combined with JetLite, and state-run Air India were the only two carriers whose passengers were denied boarding in January 2015, with 1,082 and 878 passengers respectively.