Air passenger traffic up in July: DGCA data

During January-July period, air traffic witnessed 21.13% growth

It seems more people are flying these days. The latest official figures show that Indian airline operators have carried 455.78 lakh people in the first seven months of this year, which is an increase of 21.13 per cent compared with the last year.

According to data released by Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the month of July alone saw 67.45 lakh people taking to the skies compared with 52.16 lakh in the year-ago period. In the first seven months of 2014, airlines flew 376.28 lakh people.

Though the numbers have increased, the seat occupancy in the month has shown a ‘declining trend’ compared with the previous month, and it was mainly due to the end of tourist season, the DGCA report said.

This declining trend is despite domestic airlines flying around 1.44 lakh more people in July compared with June this year. As per the latest figures, 10 domestic airlines carried 67.45 lakh people in July compared with 66.01 lakh in June.

However, four airlines -- IndiGo, GoAir, AirAsia and Air Pegasus -- have shown a decline in seat occupancy. IndiGo has the sharpest decline from 86.6 per cent to 78.4 per cent.

“The passenger load factor in July 2015, has shown declining trends compared with previous month primarily due to the end of tourist season,” the DGCA report said.

SpiceJet remained on top of the seat occupancy list by marginally increasing its figure to 93.4 per cent in July from 93.2 per cent in June. Air India has also improved its seat occupancy from 73.5 per cent to 77.8 per cent. On cancellations, it said the rate in July has been 0.53 per cent with Air Costa on top of the list.

In July, 802 passenger-related complaints have been received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for July has been 1.2, the report said.

NO AIRPOCKETS FOR INDIGO


 Airline    June 2015*    July 2015*
 Air India    15.3    16.2
 Jet Airways / Jetlite    21.1    22.8
 SpiceJet    12.1    12.3
 GoAir    8.7    8.4
 IndiGo    38.4    35.8
Airline market share in percentage                 SOURCE: DGCA