Domestic air traffic rose by over 3 per cent in October on a month on month basis with the onset of the festival season. Domestic carriers flew 12.6 million passengers in October, around 4 lakh extra passengers, compared to September. However average passenger load factor dropped to 86.3 per cent in October from 87.2 per cent in September.
Also read: Will Indian aviation market turn profitable as it heads towards duopoly
Air India saw market share gains in October as it added flights. The Tata Group airline registered a market share of 10.5 per cent, entering into double-digit territory for first time after several months. SpiceJet, too, saw an increase in its share as it inducted leased planes, but had lowest on-time performance (58.1 per cent) at four metro airports.
IndiGo topped punctuality charts, registering on time performance of 88.5 per cent. Akasa Air was the second best at 83.9 per cent. “Domestic airlines flew 50 additional flights per day in October compared to September, but flew over 1,300 fewer passengers a day,” said Ameya Joshi, founder of aviation blog, Network Thoughts.