India's domestic air traffic up 5.3 pc to 1.36 crore in Oct

New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS) India's domestic air passenger traffic registered a 5.3 per cent increase to reach 1.36 crore in October, from 1.26 crore in the same month last year, according to data compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Leading airline IndiGo flew 86.40 lakh passengers during the month with a market share of 63.3 per cent, followed by Tata Group’s Air India and Vistara, which carried 26.48 lakh and 12.43 lakh passengers, respectively.

Air India, including Air India Express, recorded a market share of 19.4 per cent, while Vistara, which has now merged into Air India, accounted for 9.1 per cent market share.

Troubled low-cost carrier SpiceJet flew 3.35 lakh passengers while Akasa Air, transported 6.16-lakh passengers during October. The two airlines registered market shares of 2.4 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively.

The surge in air traffic has continued into November as the civil aviation ministry said that on November 17, Indian skies witnessed a historic milestone with 5,05,412 domestic passengers departing on a single day, crossing the 5 lakh-mark for the first time.

The number of flight departures was at 3,173, according to the latest data from the ministry. The occupancy of flights operated by the main scheduled carriers on the day was above 90 percent.

As far as the punctuality of airlines is concerned, IndiGo delivered the highest on-time performance of 71.9 per cent during October from the four metro airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Alliance Air had the lowest OTP at 54.4 per cent among six major airlines of the country, DGCA figures showed.

There has also been some corporate restructuring in the Indian aviation industry with Vistara, earlier a 51:49 percent joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, also merged with full-service carrier Air India on November 12.

Singapore Airlines has stated that it will invest Rs 3,194.5 crore in Air India following the anticipated merger of Vistara with the Tata Group owned airline.

At the same time, Air India's subsidiaries, AIX Connect (formerly Air Asia) and Air India Express, have merged to form a single low-budget airline.