India’s domestic air passenger traffic grew 47 per cent year-on-year between January and December last year at 12.33 crore passengers even though it is yet to breach pre-Covid numbers.
Air traffic in calendar year 2021 was at 8.38 crore passengers, according to data released by the country’s civil aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). During 2019, the pre-Covid year, India’s domestic air traffic was at 14.42 crore (14.5 per cent above 2022 levels).
For December there was a 14 per cent growth year-on-year to 1.27 crore passengers. Traffic in December 2021 was 1.12 crore passengers. Monthly numbers, however, improved significantly with 1.17 crore passengers availing domestic flights in November and 1.14 crore passengers in October last year.
Market share of airlines
In December, IndiGo, despite being the largest air operator in the country with 54.9 per cent market share, ceded space to competition. Market share dipped by 80 basis points. It had witnessed similar decline in market share in November (around 100 basis points dip over October), and a similar 100 basis point dip in October.
IndiGo’s market share began declining after September.
Air India was the second-largest domestic carrier at 9.2 per cent market share, along with Vistara, which also had a market share of 9.2 per cent. Air Asia, the third airline under the Tatas, had a market share of 7.6 per cent. The cumulative market share of the Tata group airlines was 26 per cent.
SpiceJet had a market share of 7.6 per cent and GoFirst a market share of 7.5 per cent.
In December, SpiceJet, Vistara, AirAsia, Air India and IndiGo had passenger load factors (also known as occupancy rates) of 92.7 per cent, 91.9 per cent, 89.8 per cent, 89.3 per cent and 87.5 per cent, respectively.
Akasa Air, India’s newest airline in its fifth month of operation in December had its passenger load factor of 83.8 percent in December (up from the 79 per cent odd in November) and a market share of 2.3 per cent.