SpiceJet records highest seat factor among domestic airlines

SpiceJet, which was on the brink of closure late last year, has been achieving over 90% load factor since May this year

Budget carrier SpiceJet has for the seventh consecutive month reported a seat factor of above 90 per cent in November while national carrier Air India saw seat occupancy going up by over seven per cent during the period, according to DGCA traffic data.

Also, regional carrier Air Costa did not operate every fifth of its flight for various reasons in the previous month, according to data released by the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) last week.

Gurgaon-based SpiceJet recorded a seat factor of 90.7 per cent in November, the highest among the 11 domestic airlines, according to data.

As against this, rival IndiGo recorded a seat factor of 83.9 per cent in November while Air India saw its seat factor increasing to 81.7 per cent as compared with 74.6 per cent in October.

SpiceJet, which was on the brink of closure late last year, has been achieving over 90 per cent load factor since May this year, as per the DGCA data.

In terms of cancellations during the months, Air Costa cancelled 19.80 per cent of its flights for various reason in November, which was followed by two other regional carriers --Trujet and Air Paegasus with 2.16 per cent and 0.90 per cent respectively.

On the On Time Performance (OTP) side, Tata-SIA joint venture airline Vistara delivered the highest OTP from four metro airports --Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore -- at 91.5 per cent while IndiGo recorded the second best with 82.2 per cent.

Also during the month, Mumbai-headquartered GoAir received the highest number of complaints -- 2.8 per 10,000 passengers--from its customers.

During November 2015, a total of 857 passenger related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines, according to DGCA data.