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The Indian aviation sector grew 18.6 per cent between January and December 2018, against the same period last year, carrying almost 13.90 crore passengers. In December alone, airlines flew 1.26 crore passengers registering a year-on-year growth of 12.9 per cent over the 1.12 crore passengers flown by the industry in the same period last year.
The latest data released by the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show that IndiGo topped the list with 54.79 lakh passengers. Air India took the second position carrying 15.68 lakh passengers, while SpiceJet carried 15.64 lakh passengers giving it the third spot. Jet Airways flew 15.48 lakh passengers, GoAir (11.12 lakh), AirAsia (6.73 lakh), Vistara (4.78 lakh) and JetLite (2.15 lakh) during December.
IndiGo, the topper
IndiGo remained the market leader with 43.2 per cent share followed by Air India with 12.4 per cent of the market share. Whereas Spicejet grabbed the market share of 12.3 per cent and Jet Airways (12.2 per cent).
SpiceJet reported the highest Passenger Load Factor (PLF) among all domestic carriers at 92.7 per cent followed by IndiGo (88.9 per cent), AirAsia (88.8 per cent) and Jet Airways (87.0 per cent). Passenger load factor shows how many of the total seats on offer by each airline are getting filled.
“We are happy to finish 2018 on a high note by registering the highest passenger load factor of 92.7 per cent in December — a feat we accomplished every single month of the previous year. In fact, this is the 45th month in a row that we have flown with the highest loads in India and we will strive to better ourselves in 2019,” said Shilpa Bhatia, Chief Sales & Revenue Officer, SpiceJet.
GoAir reported the best on-time performance (OTP) at 83 per cent at the four metro airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Spicejet at 77.9 per cent took the second position followed by Vistara (77.7 per cent).
Cancellations, complaints
The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for December is at 0.66 per cent. Air India had the most number of cancellations of 2.40 per cent followed by Trujet (1.07 per cent) and low-cost carrier Spicejet (0.70).
During December 2018, a total of 803 passenger-related complaints had been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The industry paid over ₹2.61 crore to the over 2.01 lakh passengers. “Domestic and international airfares in December were up by 7 per cent and 11 per cent respectively as compared to same time last year. However, despite the marginal increase in airfares and localised and seasonal issues like bank strikes and cancellations due to fog, the domestic passenger market has registered a strong YoY growth of 18.6 per cent. The month-on-month air passenger traffic at 12.9 per cent is also on a positive climb as compared to last month due to the ongoing tourist season,” said Aloke Bajpai, CEO & Co-founder, ixigo.
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