Domestic air passenger traffic rises 24% in December: DGCA

NEW DELHI: Indian aviation industry’s strong passenger growth continued unabated in December when domestic airlines flew 23.91% more passengers than a year earlier, latest data from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows.

The development shows that the government’s demonetisation move, which reportedly hit demand in several sectors, did not have any impact on air travel in the country. In November, the month when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced delegalisation of about 86% currency in circulation, aviation sector had recorded 22.45% passenger growth. The government did allow using old notes for purchasing air tickets till December 2, 2016.

According to DGCA data released on Tuesday all national scheduled carriers flew their planes with over 80% of their seats full in December, which is traditionally a peak travel month. The list was led by SpiceJet that recorded load factor of 93.7%. It was the 21st month in a row that SpiceJet flew its planes with over 90% seats full.

IndiGo, the largest domestic carrier that flew 40.3% of total passengers in the sector in December, has 91.45% of seats in its aircraft full during the month. It was followed by GoAir with 90.7% load factor.

SpiceJet also topped the chart of airlines that flew the highest number of its flights on time. The data shows that SpiceJet flew 70% of its flights on time at four airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

Jet Airways and Jet Lite, which together accounted for 17.9% of total passengers flown in the country to emerge the second largest carrier, came second in on-time performance (OTP) by flying 64.3% of its flights on time, followed by Vistara that flew 64.2% of its flights on time. Air India was last in the list by flying 59% of its flights on time.

IndiGo, which was ranked fifth among six major carriers by operating 61.6% of its flights in time in December, has complained to DGCA about the procedure being followed to collate OTP data at Mumbai airport.