Maintaining the growth trajectory, domestic air traffic rose nearly 19 per cent to 70.39 lakh passengers in October as onset of tourist season saw more number of fliers.
Low cost carrier IndiGo, which recently got listed on the bourses, maintained its leadership position with a market share of 36.8 per cent in October. It flew as many as 25.90 lakh passengers last month.
With a load factor of 93 per cent, rival SpiceJet saw the maximum occupancy in its planes in October while its market share stood at 12.8 per cent during the same period.
Load factor refers to seat occupancy per aircraft.
Latest data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed that local carriers flew 70.39 lakh passengers last month compared to 59.25 lakh people in the same period of 2014.
"The passenger load factor in the month of October 2015 has shown increasing trend compared to previous month primarily due to the onset of tourist season," DGCA said.
During October, national carrier Air India ferried 10.88 lakh passengers and its market share reached 15.5 per cent.
Jet Airways and JetLite together flew 14.95 lakh people while their individual market share stood at 18.80 per cent and 2.60 per cent, respectively.
In October, another budget carrier GoAir transported 5.94 lakh passengers and commanded a market share of 8.4 per cent.
As per the data, start-up airlines -- AirAsia and Vistara -- ferried more than a lakh passengers each last month. While AirAsia carried 1.50 lakh people, Vistara flew 1.23 lakh passengers. Their market shares touched 2.1 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively.
In terms of On-Time Performance (OTP), IndiGo was on the top with 89.6 per cent, followed by SpiceJet (86.9 per cent).
Jet Airways and Jet Lite combined recorded an OTP figure of 85.3 per cent whereas that of national carrier Air India stood at 75.5 per cent in October.
The OTP numbers have been computed on the basis of four metro airports - Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
Last month, a total of 727 passenger related complaints were received by 11 scheduled domestic airlines. As much as 33 per cent of the complaints were related to flight operations.
During the 2015 January-October period, local carriers flew 6.61 crore passengers. This is an increase of 20 per cent compared to the year-ago period when the same stood at 5.51 crore passengers.
"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan-Jul
2016 were 560.87 lakh as against 455.95 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year, thereby registering a growth of 23.01 per cent," DGCA said.
SpiceJet said that in July it registered best On-Time Performance (OTP) and highest Passenger Load Factor (PLF) among major carriers having sizeable operations in the four metros of Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
"OTP for the month of July 2016 stood at 79.2 per cent; while the airline again topped the PLF chart registering 92 per cent for the same period," it said in a release.
Further, the airline said diligent planning and efficient utilisation of the resources, among other factors, helped it improve performance in July.
