The Hindu Business Line : Domestic airlines post 17% drop in passengers in Aug

The latest data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviations shows that the 10 domestic airlines reported a drop of 17.42 per cent in the number of passengers carried during August this year, compared with the same period last year.

The data shows that in August this year, domestic airlines carried 28.91 lakh passengers — down by more than 600,000 flown last year during the same period. What probably makes the picture more dismal is that this is the third successive month that the industry is reporting a drop in passenger numbers and the August passenger carriage numbers were the lowest recorded during this calendar year.

JetLite, which carried 2.69 lakh passengers, and GoAir 79,000 passengers were the only two airlines that registered an increase in number of passengers during August this year as compared to the previous month. The worst affected was Air Deccan, which carried 50,000 fewer passengers in August as compared to the previous month, followed by Kingfisher, which carried 40,000 less. Air India (domestic) carried 36,000 fewer passengers, while Jet Airways saw the number of passengers carried in August drop by 17,000.

Cut backs

In anticipation of the slowdown in passenger traffic, airlines have already started reducing the number of flights. The domestic industry has already cut back on over 120 daily flights and warn that the number could reach 300 soon.

Jet Airways and its subsidiary, JetLite, announced a temporary reduction in schedules which will see a 10 per cent reduction in flight frequencies of combined fleet.

Similarly, Air India has also reduced some of its flights while the Delhi-based IndiGo has announced that for a limited period it will operate 95 daily flights instead of 120 flights.