Domestic air passenger traffic up 16% in February

India's domestic air passenger traffic rose by 15.77 per cent in February, official data showed on Saturday.

According to data furnished by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), domestic air passenger traffic had increased to 86.55 lakh from 74.76 lakh during the corresponding month last year.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-February 2017 were 182.34 lakh as against 151.31 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 20.51 per cent," the DGCA said in its statistical analysis.

In January, the passenger traffic zoomed up by 25.13 per cent to 95.79 lakh.

The data showed that low-cost carrier (LCC) SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF) during the month under review at 93.7 per cent.

In terms of PLF, SpiceJet was followed by budget passenger carriers GoAir at 90.9 per cent, AirAsia at 88.1 per cent and IndiGo at 87.7 per cent.

According to the data, SpiceJet led the industry with 81.1 per cent punctuality rate at four major airports of Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

It was followed by IndiGo (79.7), Vistara (72.6), GoAir (68.6), Jet Airways and JetLite (68.5) and Air India (66.2).

"It has been our endeavour to provide our customers with a memorable flying experience and getting them to their destination on-time, every time. I'm very proud of the fact that we have been the most punctual airline in the country for the fifth consecutive month," Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet said in a statement.

The DGCA data disclosed that the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of February 2017 stood at 0.39 per cent.

Besides, a total of 810 passenger related complaints were received during the month.

"The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of February 2017 has been 0.9 per cent," the aviation regulator said.

The data revealed that IndiGo led the industry with the highest market share of 39.6 per cent, followed by Jet Airways (15.6), Air India (13.8), SpiceJet (12.9) and GoAir (8.4).

Vistara reported a market share of 3.1 per cent, followed by AirAsia India (2.9), JetLite (2.5), Air Costa (0.5), Trujet (0.4) and Air Carnival (0.1).

--IANS

ppg/lok/bg