Low-cost carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet recorded impressive 90 per cent-plus seat occupancies in May, but Jet Airways slipped up as it flew with more vacant seats.
The latest report from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) also showed that Vistara, which had not-so-impressive seat occupancy in the past, improving compared with April.
SpiceJet increased its seat occupancy to 93.1 per cent in May from 88.7 per cent in April to be first on the list, followed by IndiGo, which had 91.9 per cent seats filled as against 85.7 per cent. Vistara improved its seat occupancy to 71.1 per cent from 67.3 per cent.
“The passenger load factor in the month of May 2015 has shown increasing trend compared with the previous month primarily due to the onset of the tourist season,” the DGCA report said.
IndiGo is market leader
On market share, IndiGo continued to be the topper with a spread of 38.9 per cent. While it had 36.4 per cent share in March, it rose to 37.8 per cent in April.
Jet Airways was a distant second with 18.3 per cent, and Air India had 15.8 per cent. Market shares of both these airlines fell in May compared with April.
Bengaluru-based Air Pegasus, which started operations last month, flew 6,000 passengers in May and clocked a market share of 0.1 per cent.
Overall, domestic air traffic rose by 18.35 per cent in May over the same period last year. Domestic airlines together flew 71.27 lakh passengers in May as compared with 60.22 lakh passengers during May 2014. In May, the DGCA received 858 complaints against nine airlines. Of these, 793 were disposed of while investigations were going on in the remaining 65, the DGCA said.