Air traffic grows at 17 per cent

Domestic air traffic registered a growth of over 17 per cent in the month of July with airlines ferrying 95.65 lakh passengers as compared to 85.08 lakh passengers in the corresponding period last year, the government said today.
According to the government's monthly traffic data, IndiGo cornered 38.7 per cent of the market share, a slight drop from its 40 per cent share last month. The budget airline carried 36.99 lakh passengers.
It was followed by SpiceJet (14.2 per cent), Jet Airways (15.8 per cent) and Air India (13.5 per cent)- all the airlines registering an increase in their market shares.

IndiGo was also at the top in terms of its on time performance (OTP) with 84.6 per cent of its flights arriving and departing as per schedule. It was followed by Go Air (78.2 per cent), Vistara (74.54 per cent), SpiceJet (73.4 per cent), Air India (65.5 per cent), Jet Airways (64.2 per cent), the data said.
In terms of passenger load factor or seat utilisation, SpiceJet retained the top spot with 94.4 seat occupancy followed by Air Asia (88.4 per cent), Vistara (84.6 per cent) and IndiGo (83.7 per cent), it said.
"This is the 28th month in a row that SpiceJet has flown with load factors in excess of 90 per cent, a feat unparallelled in global aviation history," SpiceJet said in a statement.

The air traffic data also stated that nearly one lakh passengers were affected due to flight delays.
Over 14,000 travellers were affected due to cancellation of flights and more than 1,300 denied boarding, it said, adding airlines spent a total of Rs 4.25 crores on compensation and providing alternative facilities to affected passengers.