Festive season, discounts lift India's August air passenger traffic (Lead)

New Delhi : The start of the festive season and discount offers lifted India's domestic air passenger traffic by 17.17 per cent in August, official data showed on Monday.

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), 1.13 crore passengers were ferried by domestic airlines during the month, up from 96.90 lakh reported in the corresponding month of 2017.

As per the data, passenger traffic during the January-August 2018 period grew by 21 per cent.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-August 2018 were 913.95 lakh as against 754.11 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year, registering a growth of 21.20 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 93.6 per cent during August.

"I am delighted with SpiceJet's exceptional operational performance that has seen us emerge as the country's most punctual airline clocking industry's best on-time performance of 87.4 per cent and the highest passenger load factor of 93.6 per cent," said Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet.

SpiceJet was followed by GoAir with a PLF of 84.6 per cent and IndiGo at 82.8 per cent and Vistara at 81.5 per cent.

"The passenger load factor in August has shown increasing trend compared to previous month due to beginning of festive season," the monthly statistical analysis statement said.

The data noted that SpiceJet led the industry with 87.4 per cent punctuality rate (on-time performance) at the four major airports of Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. It was followed by IndiGo (87.2) and GoAir (87.2).

Besides, the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for August stood at 2.27 per cent.

In addition, a total of 668 passenger-related complaints were received last month.

IndiGo led the industry with the highest market share of 42 per cent, followed by Jet Airways (13.7), Air India (12.5), SpiceJet (12.4) and GoAir (8.9).

AirAsia India had a market share of 4.8 per cent, followed by Vistara (3.8), JetLite (1.5) and Trujet (0.4).

"The growth of 17.2 per cent in August shows a continuing positive momentum in the domestic air market even in a traditionally lean travel period," said Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com.

"The year to date growth for 2018 is still very robust at over 21 per cent and we are optimistic that this strong growth will continue in the coming months, driven by economical ticket prices, a number of long weekends and the beginning of festive season which is a peak travel period for Indians."

According to ixigo CEO and Co-founder Aloke Bajpai: "With the festive season just around the corner, flight bookings have been on the rise despite a slight hike in fares. Most major airlines will be announcing their festive sales soon, which should lead to further growth in bookings and passenger traffic for September-October."