Will strive to reduce cancellation of flights: Raju

The government will make efforts to reduce further the incidence of flights getting cancelled, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said today.
"No. (Number) of passengers affected due to cancelled flights shows sharp 35 per cent decrease. Shall strive to reduce this constantly," Raju said in a tweet.
Raju tweeted along with a graphic showing the decline in the "passengers affected due to cancelled flights".
As per the graphic, the number of such passengers stood at 78,215 during July 2015- April 2016 period.
The same stood at 1,19,552 during the period July 2014-April 2015.
In April this year, as many as 5,025 passengers were affected by flight cancellations, latest data available with aviation regulator DGCA.

"The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of April 2016 has been 0.44 per cent," as per the watchdog.

More than 35 per cent of the cancellations were due to technical issues, followed by operational reasons.
There were also cancellations on account of weather and commercial factors, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
According to global airlines body IATA, domestic air passenger traffic growth out performed major aviation markets and the number of fliers grew 21.8 per cent in April this year.
"India's domestic traffic soared 21.8 per cent, marking the 20th month of double-digit traffic growth and the 13th consecutive month it has led the domestic markets," International Air Transport Association (IATA) said this week.