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Domestic airlines flew 19.84 lakh passengers in June this year registering an 83.5 per cent drop from the 1.2 crore passengers flown during June last year, the latest data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows.
The DGCA said that the passenger load factor (PLF) in June this year has shown “sharp decline due to limited air operations because of the Covid-19 outbreak.”
A combination of the Corona pandemic sweeping through the country, major airports like Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata accepting fewer flights than before and different states imposing varying quarantine curbs dampened flyers’ appetite for flying.
Sky still murky
When domestic flying restarted, the government allowed domestic airlines to restart 33 per cent of their earlier operations, which was recently increased to 45 per cent.
However, senior IndiGo officials recently told the BusinessLine that as a result of the lockdown and restrictions, the airline was unable to reach even the 33 per cent level that the government had initially permitted.
IndiGo is the domestic market leader with a market share of close to 50 per cent.
In June this year, IndiGo flew the maximum number of flyers, flying 10.47 lakh of the 19.84 lakh passengers flown by all the domestic carriers, followed by SpiceJet (3.34 lakh) and Air India (2.42 lakh). AirAsia flew 1.40 lakh and Vistara 1.12 lakh passenges, the DGCA data show.
When it comes to PLF, SpiceJet retained the top spot, reporting a PLF of 68 per cent, followed by IndiGo at 60.7 per cent, GoAir at 57.9 per cent and Vistara at 56.6 per cent. Both Air India and AirAsia reported a PLF of 56.5 per cent. PLF shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.
Vistara reported the best on-time performance (OTP) at 96.1 per cent, followed by IndiGo (95.5 per cent), AirAsia (94.7 per cent), SpiceJet (91.4 per cent), GoAir (86.5 per cent) and Air India (84.6 per cent) at the four metro airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
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