India's domestic air passenger traffic clocks 5 pc growth, SpiceJet continues to lose share

NEW DELHI: India’s domestic air passenger traffic reached 11.84 crore in the first nine months of the year, up against 11.28 crore during the corresponding period of the previous year, marking an annual growth of 4.99 per cent, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data showed on Tuesday.

On a month-to-month (MoM) basis, domestic air passenger traffic grew 6.38 per cent to 1.3 crore in September from 1.22 crore in August.

During the nine-month period (January-September), budget carrier IndiGo carried more than 7.25 crore passengers, clocking a market share of 61.3 per cent, followed by Tata Group-run Air India flying over 1.64 crore passengers with 13.9 per cent share, and Vistara registering a market share of 9.8 per cent with 1.15 crore air passengers at the third position.

AIX Connect (erstwhile AirAsia India), which is also a part of the Tata Group, ferried 61.02 lakh passengers in the nine months this year, clocking a market share of 5.1 per cent, as per the DGCA data. SpiceJet flew 47.42 lakh passengers at a 4.0 per cent market share in the July-September period, while Akasa Air ferried 54.03 lakh passengers at a 4.6 per cent market share, the aviation regulator's data showed.

Embattled low-cost carrier SpiceJet is continuously losing its market share. In the January-July period, it flew 41.78 lakh passengers at 4.5 per cent market share.

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of September has been 0.85 per cent. Last month, 765 passenger-related complaints were received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of September has been around 0.59, as per the DGCA data. “The major reasons for complaints are flight-problem related. Airlines received a total of 765 complaints, out of which 765 (100 per cent) have been addressed,” said the regulator.