Data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for February had some interesting figures — Jet Airways and Jet Lite paid a compensation of ₹10.11 crore of the total ₹10.25 crore paid to 1,636 domestic passengers who were denied boarding during the month.

This figure took the compensation paid by the aviation industry to among the highest levels in the recent past. The industry had paid ₹3.19 crore in compensation in January this year, while in December 2017, it paid ₹4.17 crore. While DGCA sources said the compensation figures reported in the data were correct, sources in Jet Airways said that it was looking into the figure and there was possibly some discrepancy in the numbers. However, the airline had not issued an official statement till the time of going to press, possibly because it has to first inform the DGCA.

Meanwhile, the domestic airline industry recorded a growth of 24 per cent, having flown 1.07 crore passengers in February this year, compared to 86.55 lakh passengers in February last year.

IndiGo retained the number one position, having flown 45.57 lakh passengers, followed by Jet Airways (16.37 lakh) and Air India (15.29 lakh). SpiceJet flew 14.48 lakh passengers while Go Air carried 10.95 lakh, Air Asia 4.89 lakh and Vistara flew 4.10 lakh passengers.

SpiceJet, however, reported a passenger load factor of 96.3 per cent, the highest among all domestic airlines followed by IndiGo (91.8 per cent) and Vistara (91.2 per cent). Jet Airways and Go Air both reported a passenger load factor of 90.4 per cent. Passenger load factor shows how many of the seats on offer by airlines are filled.

SpiceJet also reported the best on time performance of 78 per cent among all the airlines at the four metro airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, followed by IndiGo (74.8 per cent) and Vistara (73.8 per cent).

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