Air passenger traffic up 6.06% in Jan-March

Domestic airlines carried 2.4 crore passengers during January-March 2022 against 2.3 crore during the same period last year, growing at 6.06% YoY and showing a slight recovery, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) report released today said.

In March, domestic airlines carried 1.06 crore passengers, versus 78.22 lakh in February, thereby recording a 36.7% growth on a month-on-month basis, the data showed.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-March 2022 were 2.48 crore as against 2.34 crore during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering an annual growth of 6.06 % and monthly growth of 36.74%," the DGCA report said.

The passenger load factor — a metric to measure the percentage of available seats filled — was a maximum of 86.9% for SpiceJet in March, followed by 86.1% for Vistara and 85% for Air India.

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month of March 2022 has been 0.30%. Airline-wise, Fly Big had the maximum cancellation rate of 5.67%, followed by Star Air at 0.74% and Alliance Air at 0.58%. The top reasons cited for the cancellation of flights were operational (47.2%), miscellaneous (17.4%), weather (16.6%), commercial (10.2%) and technical (8.7%).

In March, IndiGo carried maximum of 58.61 lakh passengers, retaining the highest market share at 54.8%, followed by GoFirst at 10.44 lakh passengers (9.8% market share) and SpiceJet at 10.21 lakh passengers (9.5% market share). For the January-March quarter, IndiGo's market share stood at 53.9%, followed by SpiceJet at 10.2% and Air India at 9.9%.

During March, a total of 458 passenger related complaints were received by the scheduled domestic airlines. "The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of March 2022 has been around 0.43," the DGCA data showed. Various reasons for passenger complaints are flight problems (37.8%), followed by refund issues (29.7%) and customer service issues (19.4%).

The on-time performance (OTP) data of scheduled domestic airlines computed for four metro airports — Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai — showed IndiGo leading the pack with 93.9% OTP. It was followed by Go First at 93%, Vistara at 91.9% and Air Asia at 91.3% OTP. Among reasons mentioned for delays in flight, a majority of them were attributed to reactionary (65%), followed by ATC (9%) and ops (7%).

After two years of suspension, the DGCA had allowed airlines to restart scheduled international flights from March 27. Among the domestic airlines, IndiGo has received the nod to operate a maximum of 505 international weekly departures, followed by Air India at 361 and Air India Express at 340. On domestic routes, the Ministry of Civil Aviation permitted 100% capacity deployment from October 18, 2021.

Ratings agency ICRA has maintained a “negative” outlook on the Indian aviation industry. It said the financial performance of Indian airlines is likely to remain weak as recovery in domestic passenger traffic to pre-Covid levels is likely by FY2024. The sharp rise in ATF prices will also continue to pose a major threat to the airlines’ profitability, it said.