October 26, 2017 TnH Global

Domestic air traffic up 16% in September

Airlines in India carried 95.83 lakh passengers in September, up 16.34% from last September, data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) showed. September is typically a lean travel month for domestic airlines, and passengers are offered economical fares to boost demand.

SpiceJet had the highest occupancy at 94.2% during the month, followed by GoAir (88.5%) IndiGo (85.2%), Vistara (84.1%), Jet Lite (83.3%), Jet Airways (80.2%), Air India (78.6%), TruJet (74.4%) and ZoomAir (60.1%). The January to September passenger traffic was also higher compared to the previous year.

“Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Sept 2017 were 849.94 lakhs as against 726.98 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 16.91 %,” DGCA said.

“This is the 31st month-in-a-row that SpiceJet has flown with load factors in excess of 90%—a feat unparalleled in global aviation history. Significantly, this is also the fifth consecutive month when our load factors have been 94% plus,” Shilpa Bhatia, chief sales and revenue officer, SpiceJet said in a statement.

IndiGo had a 38.2% market share, Jet Airways group (17.7%), SpiceJet (13.8%), Air India (13.5%), GoAir (8.4%), AirAsia (4.1%), Vistara (3.8%) and TruJet (0.4%) during the month. The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines during September was 0.78%, DGCA said. India is set to become the third largest aviation market a year earlier than originally expected, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) said in a report on Tuesday.

IATA, which represents about 85% of the global airline traffic, projects India to overtake the UK to become the third largest air passenger market by 2025. China will be the top market, followed by the US. By 2036, India will have about 478 million airline passenger traffic, which will be more than that of Japan (just under 225 million) and Germany (just over 200 million) combined.

India’s current passenger traffic is about 141 million.

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