Aviation: Domestic air passengers grew 17.17% to 11.35 million in August

Country's domestic passenger traffic grew over 17 per cent to 11.35 million in August over the same period year ago even as the average seat factor of all major carriers declined compared with July, DGCA data show Monday. Besides, budget carrier SpiceJet outperformed rivals IndiGo and GoAir in punctuality in operations as its on time performance from four key airports stood at 87.4 per cent against 87.2 per cent apiece.

Passengers carried by domestic airlines in August 2018 stood at 11.35 million as compared to 9.69 million in August 2017 thereby registering a growth 17.17 per cent, according to the DGCA monthly domestic traffic statistics. On a cumulative basis, domestic passengers traffic volume surged 21.20 per cent to 91.39 million between January-August of 2018 against 75.41 million in the corresponding period of 2017, it said.

The figures showed IndiGos continued dominance in market share with 41.9 per cent, followed by Jet Airways at 13.8 per cent and Air India at 12.7 per cent. However, while both IndiGo and Jet Airways lost market share by a few notches, Air India gained it marginally. While IndiGo flew the maximum number of passengers at 47.57 lakh in July this year, Jet Airways followed at 15.61 lakh and the national carrier Air India took the third place with 14.41 lakh passengers.

SpiceJet, which clocked the highest load factor at 93.6 per cent, carried 14.04 lakh passengers and rival GoAir flew 10.14 lakh passengers during August, as per the DGCA. While GoAir recorded average 84.6 per cent load factors across its flights, the same for IndiGo and Air India stood at 82.8 per cent and 82.3 per cent, respectively, in August.

The Zexus Air Services-promoted Zoom Air, which had started its operations with much hype in early 2017, failed to operate its service for the second month in a row with 100 per cent cancellations of flights. Scheduled commuter airlines Air Odisha and Air Deccan also cancelled 66 per cent and five per cent of their total flights respectively during the month, as per the DGCA data.