The domestic airlines flew 77.09 lakh passengers in December last year, recording a growth of close to 20 per cent over 64.40 lakh passengers carried during the same period in the previous year.
The latest data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation show that IndiGo retained its pole position having flown 27.43 lakh passengers followed by Jet Airways (14.04 lakh) and Air India (12.85 lakh).
During the month, SpiceJet flew 9.76 lakh passengers, Go Air (6.39 lakh), Air Asia (1.82 lakh) and Vistara (1.58 lakh). Vistara is the brand name of the joint venture domestic airline between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines. The DGCA attributes the high passenger carriage by the domestic airlines due to the ongoing tourist season in December.
SpiceJet, a Delhi-based low-cost airline, reported the highest passenger load factor of 92.1 per cent followed by IndiGo (88.5 per cent), Air Costa (87.1 per cent), Air India (86.7 per cent) and Go Air (86.5 per cent). The passenger load factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.
In December 2015, the domestic airline industry paid over ₹84 lakh as compensation to over 100,000 passengers affected by delays in flight operation. In addition, another ₹62 lakh was paid to over 19,000 passengers affected by cancellations while over ₹56.70 lakh was paid to over 2,000 passengers who were denied boarding, the data show.
Indian law stipulates that airlines pay compensation starting from ₹2,000 going up to ₹4,000 for flights which are delayed or cancelled.
The law also stipulates that a compensation of ₹2,000 be paid for flights having a block time of one-hour while the compensation is ₹4,000 for flights having a block time of two hours or more. Block time is determined from the time between the first movement of an aircraft from its parking position at the departure airport in order to manoeuvre to the runway for takeoff until the wheels are standing still again at the destination airport and all engines are shut down.
The compensation is only paid if the cost of the ticket is higher than the compensation amount.