Domestic passenger air traffic sees 4 pc growth in Sep to date, SpiceJet slips further

NEW DELHI: India’s domestic passenger air traffic rose 6 per cent (year-on-year) to 13.1 million in August and daily traffic trends for September indicate a moderate growth of 4 per cent YoY to date, a report showed on Tuesday.

SpiceJet hit a new low with its market share shrinking by 80 bps to 2.3 per cent (month-on-month), largely due to financial woes and increased grounding, according to the report by Emkay Global Financial Services.

Indigo continues to dominate the domestic space, boosting its market share by 40 bps to 62.4 per cent in August, the report mentioned.

Tata Group’s market share also saw an uptick, at 60 bps MoM to 29.4 per cent, driven by Air India and Vistara gaining 40 bps and 30 bps MoM, respectively, thereby reaching 14.7 per cent and 10.3 per cent market share.

Indigo and Tata group now dominate 92 per cent of the Indian skies.

While AIX Connect shed marginal 10 bps MoM to gain 4.4 per cent market share, Akasa Air recorded a marginal downtick of 20 bps MoM to 4.5 per cent.

On-time performance (OTP) and cancellations show improvement and passenger load factors (PLFs) declined across key airlines in August with SpiceJet recording a sharp monthly dip of 930 bps.

Cancellations eased up in August with SpiceJet recording the highest cancellation rate of 2.57 per cent, followed by AIX Connect and Indigo at 1.38 per cent and 0.64 per cent, respectively, according to the report.

Vistara recorded the lowest cancellations at 0.17 per cent, while Air India and Akasa Air’s cancellation rate stood at 0.21 per cent and 0.19 per cent, respectively.

Domestic ATF prices declined 5 per cent MoM to Rs 93.5 per litre (in Delhi) in September.

According to reports, domestic passenger traffic is set to witness 7-10 per cent growth (year-on-year) in FY25.