Indian airlines carry over 110 lakh passengers in October, domestic air traffic increases by 10 percent: DGCA

Domestic air traffic has increased manifold and Indian airlines flew over 110 lakh passengers in October, 10 percent higher than the number of people flying in September, reports PTI.

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Air traffic has been picking up in recent months after the airline industry was significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. A recent release by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed that air traffic jumped nearly 27 percent to 114.07 lakh in October compared to the year-ago period when it was 89.85 lakh. Indian airlines carried 1.14 crore passengers in October, 10 percent higher than the number of people flying in September. In September, the air traffic number stood at 103.55 lakh. The country's largest airline IndiGo's market share declined to 56.7 percent in October compared to the previous month when it stood at 58 percent.

The market share of Vistara also fell to 9.2 percent last month from 9.6 percent in September, as per the data. Akasa Air, which started operations in August, had a market share of 1.4 percent in October compared to 0.9 percent in September.

In October, Air India's market share stood at 9.1 percent while that of SpiceJet and Go First was at 7.3 percent and 7 percent, respectively. AirAsia India's market share rose to 7.6 percent in October and that of Alliance Air marginally increased to 1.3 percent during the same period.

In terms of On-Time Performance (OTP) in October, Air India was on top at 90.8 percent, followed by Vistara (89.1 percent) and AirAsia India (89.1 percent). All three airlines are part of the Tata group.

IndiGo's OTP was at 87.5 percent, followed by Alliance Air (74.5 percent), SpiceJet (68.9 percent), and Go First (60.7 percent). The OTP has been computed for four metro airports -- Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-October 2022 were 988.31 lakh as against 620.96 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering an annual growth of 59.16 percent and monthly growth of 26.95 percent," DGCA said.

(With inputs from PTI)