Domestic airlines flew 1.14 crore passengers in January registering a growth of close to 20 per cent over the 95.97-lakh passengers flown during the same period in the previous year.
The latest data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation show that IndiGo remained the market leader having flown 45.57 lakh passengers in January, while Jet Airways took the second spot with 16.37 lakh passengers.
Air India managed to edge out SpiceJet, with the state-owned airline having flown 15.29 lakh passengers compared with 14.48 lakh passengers flown by the Gurugram-headquartered low-cost airline, the data showed. GoAir carried 10.95 lakh passengers, AirAsia (4.89 lakh) and Vistara (4.10 lakh).
SpiceJet, however, reported the highest Passenger Load Factor of 95 per cent among all the domestic airlines followed by IndiGo and JetLite (both 89.7 per cent). Jet Airways recorded 88.7 per cent.
The Passenger Load Factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.
IndiGo reported the best on-time performance among all the airlines at 75.4 per cent at the four metro airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. SpiceJet took the second spot reporting an OTP of 74.4 per cent followed by GoAir (67.4 per cent) and Air India (domestic) 66.9 per cent .
The industry paid ₹3.198 crore as compensation to over 3.36 lakh passengers affected by cancellations and delays in flights.
This includes paying over ₹1.39 crore to over 31.14 lakh passengers who were affected by delays.
“This is the 34th month in a row that we have flown with (passenger) load factors in excess of 90 per cent — a feat unparalleled in the aviation industry,” said Shilpa Bhatia, Chief Sales and Revenue Officer, SpiceJet.