Air Pocket: October domestic air passenger traffic growth slowest in 15 months

Domestic passenger traffic grew 13.3% year-on-year during October 2018, the slowest in 15 months. This was largely due to a high base in the year-ago period, when Diwali was celebrated. According to the data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday, a total of 11.84 million passengers preferred to use air transport during last month.

The Diwali month, which typically witnesses maximum air traffic, was celebrated in November this year. Domestic air traffic had grown 20.5% y-o-y during October 2017.

India’s domestic air traffic has been growing at 20.1% y-o-y due to affordable fares and rising personal income in the 2018 calendar year. The majority of the carriers reported 2-7% y-o-y decline in passenger load factor (PLF) in October due to the delayed festive season.

“The monthly growth was tempered due to factors such as the delayed festival season this year and an increase in fares of over 15% compared to September,” Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com, said.
According to experts, the average fares during October were up 10% y-o-y, which contributed to the reduction in passenger traffic growth.

“The airlines managed to pass on a part of their rising input costs to consumers during October, which is a strong travel period. The fares on popular routes were up 10% y-o-y,” Balu Ramachandran, head of air and distribution at Cleartrip, explained.

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While the spike in crude oil prices and the depreciation in the value of rupee hurt the industry, the worst seems to be over.

Carriers like IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet reported losses of Rs 390-1300 crore during the September quarter.

Low-cost airline SpiceJet continued to remain in pole position among all key scheduled carriers at 90.8%, down 2.5% y-o-y.

National carrier Air India reported 2.8% y-o-y dip in PLF at 78.8% while

Jet Airways flew with 80.9% passenger occupancy, down 3.5% year-on-year. Vistara, a joint venture between

Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, reported 6% year-on-year decline in PLF at 79.7% and Mumbai-based GoAir recorded PLF at 84.1%, down 7.2% year-on-year.

The exceptions to this trend were market leader IndiGo, which reported a flat growth in PLF at 83.1%, and Air Asia, which flew with flights 82.8% full, up 15% y-o-y.

The market share of scheduled carriers remained similar, with IndiGo leading with 42.8%. It carried 5.07 million passengers in August.

Jet Airways flew 1.76 million passengers, having a 14.9% market share, while Air India had a market share of 12.2% with 1.44 million travellers.

SpiceJet was fourth with 1.38 million passengers and 11.7 market share ahead of the Wadia Group-owned GoAir, which saw 1.04 million customer bookings with 8.8% market share.

AirAsia served 0.64 million domestic passengers, settling at 5.4% market share, while Vistara bagged 3.7% market share with 0.43 million passengers during last month.