Domestic air passenger volumes grew most in four months to 10.35 million in September over the same period last year, according to a data released by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Wednesday
With this, the aviation industry has now crossed 10 million passengers every month in six out of seven months, pointing at a sustained revival in demand for air travel. There was a 2.37% growth in the number of flyers in September compared to August and a 47% growth compared to September last year.
Market share of airlines did not see any dramatic change during September with the exception of Akasa Air, which started operations in August, with nearly a 1% share. Go First and SpiceJet at 7.9% and 7.3%, respectively, lost share during September, while IndiGo, Vistara and Air Asia maintained their share at 57.7%, 9.6% and 5.9%, respectively.
Also Read: Air India targets 30% market share in 5 years
Analysts tracking the sector state that with extended weekend holidays, festivals, continued improvement in corporate demand and addition of capacity in October should see a higher number of passengers compared to September.
“We have ramped up frequencies on some existing routes and introduced several new routes, like Mumbai-Srinagar, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Mumbai-Bhubaneswar, Mumbai-Indore, Mumbai-Dehradun, Bengaluru-Indore, and Bengaluru-Pune. We have increased departures from Mumbai to almost 50 against 38 earlier and departures from Bengaluru have also doubled,” said a Vistara spokesperson.
Vistara and SpiceJet continued to maintain their lead in aircraft passenger load factor (PLF), clocking 85.4% and 85.8%, respectively. Akasa Air saw the biggest jump in PLF at 81.2%, which was ahead of Air Asia (77%) and Air India (79.6%), and nearly on par with IndiGo (81.4%).
Last month, the DGCA extended restrictions on SpiceJet to operate with only 50% capacity till October 29 after repeated safety-related incidents.