New Delhi: The number of passengers domestic airlines dropped by 4.5 pc to 109.95 lakh in April as compared to 115.13 lakh in the same month of the previous year, according to data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The key reason was grounding of Jet Airways on April 17, which cut the total seat capacity and shrank the market.
Taken together in the first four months of calendar 2019, however, the number of flyers was up 2.5 pc at 464.47 lakh compared to 453.03 lakh in January to April of 2018. Of these, 404.23 lakh passengers were flown by private carriers while the government-owned Air India flew 60.25 lakh travellers.
SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor in April at 93.7 pc followed by GoAir at 90.8 pc and IndiGo at 87.8 pc. Air India’s PLF was 81.2 pc, according to DGCA figures. GoAir had the best on-time performance followed by Air Asia, Vistara, IndiGo, and Air India.
IndiGo had a market share of 45.6 pc from January to April while SpiceJet had 13.4 pc, GoAir at 9.6 pc and Air India at 13 pc.
The domestic passenger traffic remained on an upswing between July 2013 and March 2019, after witnessing year-on-year de-growth in June 2013, Icra said in a note.
“This (de-growth in domestic passenger traffic) is primarily attributable to adverse impact on the industry capacity which has been hit hard due to grounding of Jet Airways aircraft starting February (due to liquidity constraints) and eventual discontinuation of its operations from April 18,” Icra added.
Noting that the consequent increase in airfares due to the demand-supply imbalance has impacted the industry passenger load factors (PLFs), Icra said during April all airlines except GoAir have reported a year-on-year decline in PLFs. Overall, the domestic passenger traffic growth for January-April period has been muted at 2.5 pc.
