Indian domestic air traffic up 5.3pc in October

New Delhi: India's domestic air passenger traffic grew 5.3 per cent to 1.36 crore in October from 1.26 crore in the same month last year, aviation regulator DGCA's monthly data showed on Tuesday (Nov 26).

During the reporting month, budget carrier IndiGo carried 86.40 lakh passengers, clocking a market share of 63.3 per cent, followed by Tata Group-run Air India and Vistara, which flew 26.48- lakh and 12.43-lakh travellers, respectively.

Air India numbers include the number of passengers flown by its low-cost arm Air India Express, as per data. Air India merged its subsidiary AIX Connect with its low-cost international budget arm Air India Express on October 1 this year.

The merged entity named as Air India Express now operates as the low-cost arm of Air India.

The market share of Air India (including Air India Express) during October 2024 stood at 19.4 per cent, while that of Vistara at 9.1 per cent, as per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation data.

Vistara, earlier a 51:49 per cent joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, also merged with full-service carrier Air India on November 12.

The two Tata Group airlines (Air India and Vistara) taken together accounted for 28.5 per cent of the total domestic passenger traffic last month, according to data.

At the same time, SpiceJet flew 3.35 lakh passengers while Akasa Air, transported 6.16-lakh passengers in the previous month, accounting for 2.4 per cent and 5.4 per cent in the overall domestic passenger traffic in October 2024, the DGCA data showed.

IndiGo delivered the highest on-time performance from the four metro airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad -- at 71.9 per cent during the previous month, while the government-run Alliance Air had the lowest OTP at 54.4 per cent among six major airlines of the country, according to DGCA.

-B