Domestic air passenger traffic rises 4.36% to 15.25 million in Jan: DGCA

India's domestic air passenger traffic grew 4.36 per cent year-on-year to 152.49 lakh in January 2026 over the corresponding month of last year, according to DGCA data.

The domestic carriers, including four major ones, IndiGo, Air India Group, SpiceJet and Akasa Air, together had flown a total of 146.11 lakh passengers in January 2025 on local routes, data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) late Friday evening showed.

Gurugram-headquartered IndiGo, which faced massive operational disruptions on account of stricter norms for pilots' rest and duty period in December and lost about 4 per cent market share in the previous month, wrested it back with 63.6 per cent market share, having flown 97.04 lakh passengers during the reporting month.

On the contrary, Air India Group lost nearly three per cent market share at 26.5 per cent ( 40.34-lakh passengers) sequentially in the previous month, according to data.

In terms of passenger load factor, Akasa Air recorded the highest seat factor at 93.2 per cent during January 2026, while IndiGo had the second-best at 87.7 per cent during the reporting month.

PLF is an airline industry metric that measures how much of an airline's passenger-carrying capacity is used.

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of January 2026 was seen 1.44 per cent while IndiGo delivered the best On-time performance at 70.9 per cent from six key metro airports, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, during the month under review, as per DGCA data.