India’s domestic airlines carried 1.29 crore passengers in April

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Domestic airlines flew 1.29 crore passengers in April, a rise of more than 22 per cent compared to the year-ago period, according to official data released on Friday.

However, the domestic air traffic number last month at 128.88 lakh was marginally lower than the 128.93 lakh recorded in March.

In April 2022, the number of passengers carried by airlines stood at 105.47 lakh.

“Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-April 2023 were 503.93 lakh as against 352.70 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering annual growth of 42.88 per cent and monthly growth of 22.20 per cent,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said on Friday.

In terms of On-Time Performance (OTP) in April, Akasa Air topped at 94 per cent, followed by Air India (91.1 per cent) and IndiGo (89.6 per cent).

Go First, which has suspended flights from May 3, had the lowest OTP at 41.7 per cent in April.

Vistara’s OTP was at 86.5 per cent, followed by AirAsia India (82.9 per cent), SpiceJet (69.2 per cent) and Alliance Air (67.9 per cent).

In April, IndiGo’s domestic market share rose to 57.5 per cent from 56.8 per cent in the previous month.

The market share of Air India declined to 8.6 per cent in April from 8.8 per cent in March, while that of Vistara fell to 8.7 per cent from 8.9 per cent during the same period.

As per the data, AirAsia India’s (now AIX Connect) market share remained unchanged at 7.6 per cent in April.

SpiceJet saw its market share drop to 5.8 per cent in April from 6.4 per cent in March, while that of Go First decreased to 6.4 per cent from 6.9 per cent.

Last month, the market share of Akasa Air rose to 4 per cent from 3.3 per cent in March.

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines stood at 0.47 per cent in April, with Alliance Air seeing the highest cancellation rate of 7.55 per cent. (REDIFF)