Domestic air traffic sees strong recovery, nearly five-fold YoY growth in May
PremiumIndian carriers flew 1.20 crore passengers on the local routes in May, while domestic air passenger traffic in May 2021 stood at a meagre 21-lakh
The domestic air passenger traffic has seen a strong recovery, logging nearly five-fold year-on-year volume growth in May, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data.
The data shows that Indian carriers flew 1.20 crore passengers on the local routes in May, while domestic air passenger traffic in May 2021 stood at a meagre 21-lakh.
Carrier-wise breakdown
Of the total 1.20 crore passengers, market leader IndiGo transported around 70 lakh with 57.9% market share, followed by Mumbai-based carrier Go First with 12.76 lakh passengers, accounting for 10.8% of the total domestic traffic.
The two full-service carriers – Air India and Vistara, which are part of the Tata Group along with no-frills AirAsia India – carried 8.23 lakh and 9.83 lakh passengers, respectively, in the previous month.
AirAsia India flew 6.86 lakh passengers across the domestic routes in May 2022.
During the reporting month, budget carrier SpiceJet delivered the highest load factor at 89.15 followed by Go First at 86.5%, as per the monthly data.
In aviation parlance, passenger Load Factor or Seat Factor is a measure of how much of an airline's passenger carrying capacity is used or the average percentage of seats filled in an aircraft.
In terms of On-Time Performance (OTP), AirAsia India had its maximum number of flights operating on time with an OTP of 90.8% across four key airports.
Vistara had the second-best OTP at 87.5% in the month under review, DGCA said.
At present, DGCA publishes monthly on-time performance of domestic airlines from four metro airports – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Air passenger traffic in FY22
Credit rating agency Icra had earlier said that domestic air passenger traffic is estimated to have logged an 83% growth year-on-year at 1.05 crore in April, leaving a gap of just 5 per cent when compared to the pre-pandemic level.
It said in April that India's domestic air passenger traffic is estimated to have grown by around 59% year-on-year to 84 million in FY22, although it is still about 40% lower as compared to the pre-pandemic level.
Indian carriers had flown around 1.1 crore passengers in April 2019.