For over a year now India's domestic air traffic has shown a big upswing compared to the global average. For April, the domestic air traffic numbers recorded a 22 per cent growth against a global average of 4.1 per cent during the months, IATA data showed.
For April, the domestic air passenger traffic grew by 21.8 per cent due to cheaper fares, said the data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) recently. In number terms, April witnessed 7.93 million domestic air travellers compared to 6.55 million in April 2015 with IndiGo cornering a market share to 38.7 per cent.
As per the DGCA figures, Jet Airways saw a significant market share drop to 18.9 per cent from 20.2 per cent a month ago while Air India’s market share went up to 15.1 per cent compared with 14.7 per cent in March 2016.
Both SpiceJet and Vistara too showed an increase in their respective market share - SpiceJet went up to 12.9 per cent while Vistara which moved to 2.3 per cent from 2 per cent. GoAir too increased market share from 8.5 per cent from 8.3 per cent.
"India's domestic traffic soared 21.8 per cent, marking the 20th month of double-digit traffic growth and the 13th consecutive month it has led the domestic markets," global airlines body International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Tuesday, May 31. Growth is being propelled by the comparatively strong economic backdrop as well as by substantial increase in service frequencies, IATA said.
"Demand for domestic travel climbed 4.1 per cent in April compared to April 2015, while capacity increased 3.8 per cent, causing load factor to rise 0.3 percentage points to 81.4 per cent," IATA said. All markets reported demand increase with the exception of Brazil, which showed a 12.1 per cent decline, reflecting the country's ongoing economic recession and political turmoil, it added. According to IATA, China recorded 9.5 per cent domestic traffic growth, a strong rebound from the 3.3 per cent increase recorded in March.
International passenger demand, however, rose 4.8 per cent in April this year compared to April 2015, the slowest pace in two years. Airlines in all regions recorded growth, led by the Middle East region, it said.
BW Reporters
Ashish Sinha is an experienced business journalist who has covered FMCG, auto, infrastructure, tourism, telecom among several other beats. Ashish has keen interest in the regulatory scenario impacting different sectors. He writes on aviation, railways, post and telegraph, infrastructure, defence, media & entertainment, among a wide variety of other subjects.
