Travel during the festival season helped domestic air traffic rise by 60 per cent in October, compared to the same month last year, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). However, the overall traffic is yet to cross pre-Covid levels.
On Tuesday, DGCA’s data showed that domestic air traffic jumped to 114.07 lakh last month, compared to the year-ago period, when it was 89.85 lakh. In September, the air traffic number stood at 103.55 lakh.
IndiGo carried the highest number of passengers, followed by Vistara and Air India. The passenger load factor of SpiceJet, IndiGo, Vistara, GoFirst, Air India and AirAsia were 88.1 per cent, 82.1 per cent, 85.5 per cent, 86.7 per cent, 82.7 per cent and 84.2 per cent, in October.
Akasa Air, India’s newest carrier, saw a slight fall in its passenger load factor, falling to 77.5 percent in October, its third month of operations, from 81.2 percent in September.
Individually, IndiGo’s market share slipped to 56.7 percent in October from 58 per cent in the previous month. Tata-owned Vistara’s market share also fell to 9.2 percent in October from 9.6 per cent in September. It’s market share fell for a second straight month from 9.7 percent in August and 9.6 percent in September.
Air India’s market share dropped marginally by 0.1 per cent. GoFirst’s market share, too, dropped by 0.9 per cent. On the other hand, Air Asia gained market share by 1.5 per cent to 7.6 per cent.
The newest kid on the block, Akasa Air, which commenced operations in August, gained a market share of 1.4 per cent last month, up from 0.9 per cent in September. SpiceJet’s market share remained unchanged at 7.3 per cent.
In terms of punctuality, where Wadia Group-owned GoFirst has been making news for the past few weeks over delays, Tata Group-owned airlines are the top three on time performers.
Air India was the most punctual airline in October. Its OTP was 90.8 per cent in October compared with 87.1 per cent in September. The second spot was occupied by Vistara with an on-time performance of 89.1 per cent in October compared with 91 per cent in September. AirAsia India was the third most punctual airline with an OTP of 89.1 per cent versus 89.8 per cent in September.
IndiGo recorded an 87.5 per cent on-time performance followed by government-run Alliance Air with an on-time performance of 74.5 per cent. SpiceJet stood at 68.9 per cent, and Go FIRST airline continued to be the least punctual for the second month in a row with a 60.7 per cent on-time performance.