Domestic airlines carried lesser travellers last yr than 2011

New Delhi: Lesser number of passengers travelled by Indian domestic air carriers last year as compared to 2011, according to DGCA data.

Between January and December last year, domestic airlines carried 588.19 lakh passengers as against 606.63 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year, a decline of 3.04 percent.

In December last year, four percent less passengers travelled on domestic airlines compared to the same period previously.

The data shows that the seven airlines carried 54 lakh passengers in December, 2012 as against 56 lakh passengers flown in the same month previously.

As per the DGCA data, low cost carrier IndiGo maintained its lead with a market share of 27 percent in December, 2012 while Jet and Jetlite combined were at second spot with 25.6 percent stake -- 18.9 percent of Jet and 6.7 percent of JetLite.

National carrier Air India remained at third with a market share of 20.6 percent. However, it is placed second on stand alone basis among the airlines.

The seats being offered by the industry and passenger demands for seats witnessed a decline in capacity for the eight straight month in December last year.

When it came to overall cancellations of scheduled domestic airlines for December, the newly launched Mantra airlines witnessed the largest number of cancellations with 29 percent of its flight being cancelled.

According to DGCA data, a total of 792 passenger related complaints were received by the scheduled domestic airlines in December. The average number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried was 1.5, with Air India registering highest number of 2.2.

Over 82,000 passengers, affected by flight delays, were paid a compensation of over Rs 43 lakh while the over 26,000 passengers whose flights were cancelled were paid a combined compensation of over Rs 61 lakh.

PTI