Sales offers lift India's July domestic air passenger growth by 21%

Sales offers on ticket booking sequentially lifted India`s domestic air passenger traffic growth by 20.82 per cent in July. According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), 1.15 crore passengers were ferried by the domestic airlines during the month under review, up from 95.65 lakh reported during the corresponding month of 2017.

As per the data furnished by the DGCA on Monday, the passenger traffic during the January-July 2018 period grew by 22 per cent.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-July 2018 were 800.40 lakhs as against 657.21 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 21.79 per cent," the DGCA said in its monthly domestic traffic report. 

The data disclosed that low-cost carrier SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF) -- a measure of capacity utilisation of the airline -- at 93.8 per cent during July.

"July 2018 marked the 40th month in a row that we have flown with the highest loads in the country," said Shilpa Bhatia, Chief Sales and Revenue officer, SpiceJet.

SpiceJet was followed by IndiGo with a PLF of 88.7 per cent, GoAir at 87.2 per cent and Vistara at 84.1 per cent.

"The passenger load factor in the month of July 2018 has shown declining trend compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season," the monthly statistical analysis statement said.

The data noted that IndiGo led the industry with 85.5 per cent punctuality rate (on-time performance) at the four major airports of Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. It was followed by SpiceJet (80.6) and Jet Airways and JetLite (76.7).

Besides, the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for July 2018 stood at 1.49 per cent.

In addition, the data disclosed that a total of 714 passenger-related complaints were received last month.

The data revealed that IndiGo led the industry with the highest market share of 42.1 per cent, followed by Jet Airways (13.6), Air India (12.4), SpiceJet (12.3), and GoAir (8.9).

AirAsia India had a market share of 4.8 per cent, followed by Vistara (3.9), JetLite (1.5) and Trujet (0.4). 

"While the cost of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) has been increasing, we have witnessed an increase in demand due to discounts offered by airlines. In July 2018, ixigo witnessed an overall growth of `3x` in flight bookings as compared to the same period last year," ixigo CEO and Co-founder Aloke Bajpai said. 

"We anticipate this growth to continue in the coming months, owing to the upcoming festive season."

Sharat Dhall, COO(B2C) of Yatra.com said: "Indian domestic aviation market`s growth remains robust with July, 2018 registering a strong growth of 20.8% over the same month last year."

"Despite the lean monsoon season, passenger growth continued to be strong and this was given a further boost by airlines announcing sales in July. With the festival season ahead of us, we are confident that domestic traffic will continue to show the same momentum and keep growing in the months to come."