Indigo flight cancellations, delays affect 76,000 passengers in Sep: DGCA

Over 76,000 passengers of budget carrier IndiGo were affected due to the airline cancelling its flights or delaying them by more than two hours in September, while Tata-owned Air India denied boarding to 450 passengers during the month, DGCA data revealed on Thursday.

According to the data, India's domestic air passenger traffic grew 29.10 per cent at 1.22 crore in September, against 1.03 crore in the same month of the last year, with IndiGo commanding a whopping 63.4 per cent of the total traffic.

Of the total 76,612 total passengers affected, 50,945 passengers were affected after IndiGo cancelled its flights altogether in September, while another 25,667 passengers were affected due to the Gurugram-based budget airline delaying its flights by more than two hours during the month, according to data.

At the same time, while it provided alternative flights and full refunds to the passengers affected by flight cancellations, the airline served only refreshments to the passengers for the delayed (by more than two hours) flights, The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data revealed.

Significantly, as many as 46 of its 334 aircraft are currently on ground owing to various supply chain issues as on date, as per the aircraft fleet tracking website Planespotters.

Besides IndiGo, 24,758 passengers of Air India and another 24,635 passengers of SpiceJet were affected on account of their airlines delaying some of their flights by more than two hours in September, as per data.

However, Air India offered them flights on other airlines, served them refreshment and lunch and spent Rs 5.27 lakh on facilitation, as part of mitigating efforts.

SpiceJet on its part, spent Rs 45.78 lakh on facilitation of passengers besides providing them alternative flights and refreshments, according to DGCA.

Meanwhile, maintaining its leadership in the domestic air passenger traffic, IndiGo flew 77.70 lakh passengers during September, followed by Vistara (12.29 lakh passengers), Air India (11.97-lakh passengers), respectively.

Vistara and Air India had a market share of 10 per cent and 9.8 per cent, respectively, during the previous month, as per DGCA data.

Air India subsidiary AirAsia India, which has now become AiX Connect, transported 8.16 lakh passengers with a 6.7 per cent market share.

The two other no-frills carriers -- SpiceJet and Akasa Air, carried 5.45 lakh and 5.17-lakh passengers on their flights, respectively, with a market share of 4.4 per cent and 4.2 per cent, during September, as per DGCA data.

IndiGo delivered the highest on-time performance at 83.6 per cent from four key airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad -- in the previous month, while Vistara had 92 per cent load factor on its planes, the highest among all domestic airlines during the month, the DGCA data showed.