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The number of passengers flown by domestic airlines grew at a slowest pace for the first time in January, after 52 consecutive months of double-digit growth.
The domestic airlines flew 1.25 crore passengers in January, registering a 9 per cent growth compared to the same period last year.
Analysts say the growth was affected due to a variety of factors, including the fact that there was a slight jump in the average fares charged by domestic airlines in January,curtailing of capacity by some airlines, infrastructure bottleneck and adverse weather conditions.
The latest data released by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation shows that IndiGo retained the number one position carrying 53.22 lakh in January. SpiceJet flew 16.66 lakh passengers, followed by Air India (15.30 lakh passengers) and Jet Airways (14.91 lakh passengers) while GoAir carried 10.88 lakh passengers. Air Asia flew 6.67 lakh passengers while Vistara flew 4.70 lakh passengers during the month.
SpiceJet, however, reported the highest Passenger Load Factor (PLF) of 90.9 per cent among all domestic airlines during the month followed by AirAsia (88.4 per cent), GoAir (87.4 per cent), IndiGo (86.4 per cent) and Jet Airways (86.1 per cent). Passenger load factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled. GoAir reported the best on-time performance (OTP) among all the airlines at 75.9 per cent at the four airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Commenting on the data, Amber Dubey, Partner and Head, Aerospace, KPMG, said, “despite India’s capacity constraints 9-11 per cent growth is still several percentage points higher than the global average. The next bull run will come when new airports in Delhi and Mumbai come up and the expansion projects at other leading airports are concluded.”
Sharat Dhall, Chief Operating Officer, (B2C), Yatra.com, added that with January marking the end of the holiday season there is a dip in travel. Demand should pick up towards the end of February and March with the semester breaks in school as well as long-week ends like Maha Shivratri and Holi.
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