Domestic Air Traffic Growth in India

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has claimed that India’s domestic air passenger traffic grew by 18.36 per cent in June 2018. The official data showed that 1.13 crore passengers were ferried by the domestic airlines during the month under review from 95.68 lakh reported during the corresponding month of 2017. However, on a sequential basis, the traffic grew by around 5.04 per cent. It had risen to 1.19 crore in May 2018, while in April it had grown to 1.15 crore. As per the data furnished by the DGCA, the passenger traffic during the January-June 2018 period grew by 22 per cent. “Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-June 2018 were 684.83 lakh as against 561.55 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 21.95 per cent,” the DGCA said in its monthly domestic traffic report.

The data disclosed that low-cost carrier SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor (PLF), a measure of capacity utilisation of the airline at 93.3 per cent during June 2018. SpiceJet was followed by GoAir with a PLF of 88.6 per cent, IndiGo at 88.3 per cent and Vistara at 84.8 per cent. In its latest traffic data for May 2018, the DGCA had said that domestic air passenger traffic grew 16.53 per cent to 11.86 million during the month over the same period a year ago. Twelve domestic airlines together flew 11.85 million passengers as compared to 10.17 million passengers in May last year, the DGCA said.