Air traffic grows 29% with 67.45 lakh fliers but IndiGo flies less

New Delhi: The number of passengers ferried by domestic carriers climbed 29 percent to 67.45 lakh in July as discounts and fall in fuel prices made airfares more affordable. While no-frills carrier IndiGo continued to dominate with the highest market share of 35.8 percent, SpiceJet remained on top in terms of passenger load factor that touched 93.4 percent in July, according to latest official data.[caption id=“attachment_2197000” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Aviation regulator DGCA today said passenger load factor declined in July compared with June mainly on account of tourist season coming to an end. Last month, local carriers ferried 67.45 lakh passengers, a growth of 29.3 per cent compared with 52.16 lakh passengers seen in July last year. Many carriers had come out with discounts in July and fuel prices had also declined. Both these factors to some extent helped in reducing airfares. In June, local airlines carried 66.01 lakh people. The cumulative figures are for Air India and nine other private carriers, including Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo. As many as 24.17 lakh people travelled in IndiGo last month, the highest for any carrier. Air India ferried 10.94 lakh while Jet Airways and Jet Lite together carried 15.37 lakh people during the same period. In terms of passenger load factor or occupancy rate of seats, SpiceJet continued to be on top at 93.4 percent, while rival IndiGo clocked 78.4 percent in July. Compared with June, SpiceJet saw a marginal improvement from 93.2 percent whereas IndiGo witnessed a decline from 86.6 percent. Air India’s passenger load factor rose to 77.8 percent last month from 73.5 percent seen in June. Last month, Jet Airways’ passenger load factor touched 81 percent, Jet Lite (80.1 percent), Go Air (81.2 percent), Vistara (60.3 percent), Air Asia (80.2 percent), Air Costa (81.7 percent) and Air Pegasus (71.5 percent). “The passenger load factor in the month of July 2015 has shown declining trend compared to previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season,” DGCA said. During the January-July period, passenger growth jumped 21.13 percent to 455.78 lakh. “Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Jul 2015 were 455.78 lakh as against 376.28 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 21.13 percent,” DGCA said. The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for July stood at 0.53 per cent with little over 47 percent instances caused due to technical issues. The maximum cancellation was by Air Costa (4.67 percent) while the least was by IndiGo at 0.11 percent. Air Pegasus’ stood at 2.50 percent, Air India (1.12 percent), Jet Airways (0.52 percent), SpiceJet (0.49 percent), GoAir (0.46 percent), Vistara (0.37 percent), AirAsia (0.30 percent) and JetLite (0.22 percent). PTI