Domestic air traffic rises 7.3% to 12.9 mn on annual basis in July

Indian carriers flew more than 12.9 million passengers in July, an increase of more than 7.3 per cent compared to the year-ago period, official data released on Monday showed.

However, the air traffic in July was lower compared to 13.2 million people carried by the domestic airlines in June this year.

IndiGo continued to dominate domestic air traffic with its market share rising to 62 per cent in July while that of Air India dropped to 14.3 per cent.

Last month, the domestic market share of Vistara climbed to 10 per cent while that of AIX Connect and SpiceJet declined to 4.5 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively, as per the data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Also, Akasa Air and Alliance Air's share slipped to 4.7 per cent and 0.9 per cent, respectively.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-July 2024 were 923.35 lakh as against 881.94 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year thereby registering an annual growth of 4.70 per cent and monthly growth of 7.33 per cent," DGCA said.

In July, domestic air traffic touched 12.987 million compared to 13.206 million in June this year and 12.1 million in July 2023.

The data also showed that 1,114 passengers were denied boarding and airlines doled out Rs 11.271 million towards compensation and facilities.

As many as 1,54,770 passengers were affected by cancellations and carriers spent Rs 110.59 lakh for compensation and facilities in this regard.

On account of flight delays, 3,20,302 passengers were impacted in July and airlines shelled out Rs 341.05 lakh towards facilitation.

Last month, the overall cancellation rate of the airlines touched 1.90 per cent.

"During July 2024, a total of 1,097 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of July 2024 has been around 0.84," DGCA said.