Domestic air passenger traffic up by 15% in March

Mumbai: The deceleration in the domestic air traffic growth continues for the second consecutive month this year with the demand for travel going up nearly 15 percent to 90.45 lakh in March.

The local airlines had flown 78.72 lakh passengers in March 2016.

After posting over 20 percent growth in domestic passenger market for the 13 consecutive months till January this year, the demand for air travel dropped to 15.77 percent in February.

According to Monthly traffic data released today, eleven domestic airlines together flew 90.45 lakh passengers in the previous month, registering a growth of 14.91 percent.

The private carriers, which include Jet Airways, IndiGo, SpiceJet, GoAir, Vistara and AirAsia India, among others, increased their share in the total domestic travel market by 1.7 percent to 87 percent in March this year compared to 85.3 percent a year ago.

National carrier Air India's market share during the month stood at 13 percent, down from 14.7 percent in March 2016, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data.

The budget carrier IndiGo continued to lead the pack with 30.23 lakh passengers flown by it during the previous month, while another budget airline SpiceJet saw the highest occupancy across its flights among all other carriers at 91.1 percent in March.

In the month, as many as 1,109 passengers were denied boarding by the domestic carriers for various reasons, according to the data, with private carrier Jet Airways disallowing the maximum number of passengers (913) from entering its aircraft prior to departure.

National carrier Air India, also did not allow 174 passengers to board its flights during March 2017, the DGCA data shows.