Air passenger traffic jumps 24% in Feb

New Delhi: Marking a growth of over 24 percent in passengers number, domestic airlines flew 74.76 lakh people in February with majority of the carriers recording over 80 percent seat occupancy.

In February last year, the carriers had ferried 60.16 lakh passengers.

Latest data compiled by aviation regulator DGCA showed that no-frills carrier IndiGo's market share stood at 36.8 percent in February while that of Jet Airways was 18.4 percent.

Overall, the carriers ferried 74.76 lakh passengers, an increase of 24.27 percent compared to the year-ago period, a senior DGCA official said.

The load factor - an indicator of seat occupancy - of majority of the carriers, including IndiGo and SpiceJet, was more than 80 percent, the official noted.

Last month, the market share of Air India stood at 15.4 percent, followed by SpiceJet (13.1 percent ), GoAir (8 percent), JetLite (2.8 percent), AirAsia (2.2 percent), Vistara (2 percent) and Air Costa (0.8 percent). The market share of Air Pegasus and Trujet was at 0.3 percent each, as per DGCA.

In January, local carriers had flown 76.55 lakh people.

According to the official, a total of 151.31 lakh passengers were ferried by airlines during January-February.

This represents an increase of over 23 percent compared with 122.61 lakh passengers seen a year ago.