India's domestic air passenger traffic rose by 24% in February: Report

New Delhi: India's domestic air passenger traffic rose to 1.07 crore in February 2018 — up 24.14 percent — from 86.55 lakh in the corresponding month of 2017, official data showed on Monday.

The total domestic air passenger traffic had risen to 1.14 crore in January.

Data furnished by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed that passenger traffic during the January-February 2018 period grew by 21.80 percent.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-February 2018 were 222.09 lakh as against 182.34 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year, registering a growth of 21.80 percent," the DGCA said in its monthly domestic traffic report.

According to the DGCA data, low-cost carrier SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF) — a measure of capacity utilisation of the airline — at 96.3 percent during February.

"SpiceJet has yet again put up an exceptional operational performance by clocking the best on-time performance (78 percent) amongst all airlines and the highest passenger load factor (96.3 percent)," SpiceJet's chief Ajay Singh was quoted as saying in a statement.

"This is our highest ever load factor and comes in the traditionally lean travel month of February. For 35 months in a row our loads have been in excess of 90 percent — a feat unparalleled in the aviation industry." 

SpiceJet was followed by IndiGo with a PLF of 91.8 percent and Vistara at 91.2 percent.

"The passenger load factor in the month of February 2018 has shown increasing trend compared to previous month primarily due to the ongoing tourist season," the monthly statistical analysis of DGCA said.

The data noted that SpiceJet led the industry with 78 percent punctuality rate (on-time performance) at the four major airports of Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai. It was followed by IndiGo (74.8%), Vistara (73.8%) and Air India's domestic operations (68.8%).

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for February 2018 stood at 0.89 percent.

In addition, the data disclosed that a total of 642 passenger-related complaints were received last month.

"The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of February 2018 has been around 0.60," the monthly analysis said.

The data revealed that IndiGo led the industry with the highest market share of 39.9 percent, followed by Jet Airways (14.6%), Air India (13.2%), SpiceJet (12.4%), and GoAir (9.5%).

AirAsia India had a market share of 4.2 percent, followed by Vistara (3.6%), JetLite (2.2%) and Trujet (0.3%). 

(With IANS inputs)