Air traffic grows 20 pc in Jan, Raju says 'lovely start' in '18

Domestic air traffic grew 20 per cent in January, with airlines ferrying more than 1.14 crore passengers, according to official data.

Describing the growth as a "lovely start" in 2018, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said India continues to be the world's fastest growing aviation market.

Airlines carried over 1.14 crore passengers in January this year compared to 95.79 lakh people in the year-ago period. This marks an increase of 19.69 per cent, data released by the DGCA showed.

In January, no-frills carrier IndiGo cornered the highest market share of 39.7 per cent while that of Air India and Jet Airways stood at 13.3 per cent and 14.3 per cent, respectively.
 

SpiceJet had a market share of 12.6 per cent and that of GoAir was 9.6 per cent.

In terms of Passenger Load Factor (PLF) -- a measure of seat occupancy -- SpiceJet topped the charts at 95 per cent, followed by GoAir (90 per cent), IndiGo and Jet Lite (both at 89.7 per cent), Jet Airways (88.7 per cent) and Air India (84.6 per cent).

"SpiceJet has yet again recorded the highest PLF in the industry and this is the 34th month in a row that we have flown with load factors in excess of 90 per cent," the airline's Chief Sales and Revenue Officer Shilpa Bhatia said in a statement.

Delay of flights affected more than 3.14 lakh passengers in January while cancellations impacted 17,425 people during the same period.

For the data purpose, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) takes into account flight delays of more than two hours.

Among the airlines, delays of IndiGo flights affected over 1.49 lakh passengers.

When it came to denied boarding, a total of 5,706 passengers were affected last month. As many as 4,063 people were affected due to denial of boarding by SpiceJet, as per the data.

"A lovely start for Indian aviation in 2018. January records a growth rate of (around) 20 per cent. We continue to be the fastest growing aviation market in the world," Raju said in a tweet.

About the latest traffic numbers, travel portal Yatra.com's COO (B2C) Sharat Dhall said, he expects this growth trend to continue in the coming months.