July aviation data: Air India, AI Express, Akasa Air, SpiceJet lose market share, Vistara, IndiGo see gains

Overall, the country's domestic air traffic in July rose 7.33 percent compared to the same month last year.

Competition among domestic airlines in India is heating up with the country's largest airline in terms of market share IndiGo bouncing back to gain market share in July after losing market share in June.

The market share of IndiGo rose 120 basis points in July when compared to June as SpiceJet, Air India and Air India Express reported a 60 basis points, 30 basis points and 30 basis points fall in their respective market shares during the month.

Last month, Air India and Vistara had reported a 90 basis points and 50 basis points jump in their market share when compared to May 2024.

One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.

Akasa Air also reported a 10 basis points fall in its market share in July 2024 when compared to June, while Vistara saw its market share rise for the second month in a row, rising 30 basis points in July when compared to June.

Overall, the country's domestic air traffic in July rose 7.33 percent compared to the same month last year. The number climbed to 1.29 crore passengers, data released by the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) on August 19 showed.

Domestic air traffic fell in July and June when compared with May 2024's reading, which stood at 1.38 crore passengers, 1.32 crore passengers had taken to the skies in June 2024.

Air India Express was the most punctual airline operating in India overtaking Akasa Air and Vistara in July 2024, data from the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed. Vistara was the second most punctual airline followed by Akasa Air. Akasa Air was the most punctual airline in India for the fourth straight month in a row till June after overtaking AIX Connect in March.

The aviation pie

The market share of India's largest airline, IndiGo, grew in July after falling 80 basis points in June. The airline had lost 160 basis points in January 2024's market share, but since then it has been on an upward trend.The airline's market share now stands at 62 8 percent, with the low-cost carrier flying 80.47 lakh passengers in July.

Air India remained the second-largest domestic carrier in July and garnered a market share of 14.3 percent, flying 18.6 lakh passengers during the period.

Vistara's market share in July came in at 10 percent, the airline flew 12.94 lakh passengers in July.

Vistara on April 7 had said that it was reducing capacity by 10 percent, which is around 25-30 flights daily, as the carrier strives to stabilise operations.

The market share of AIX Connect, which, too, is part of the Tata stable, fell 30 basis points to 4.5 percent, as the carrier served 5.9 lakh passengers in July.

SpiceJet's market share in July was 3.1 percent falling 70 basis points when compared to June. July marks the fourth straight month of market share fall for SpiceJet after its market share had fallen in June, May and April when compared to the previous months.

The airline carried 405,000 passengers in July 2024. The airline's market share has fallen from a peak market share of 10.7 percent in February 2022.

Akasa Air carried 6.05 lakh passengers in July garnering a market share of 4.7 percent 10 basis points lower than June.

The passenger load factor, or the occupancy rate, of SpiceJet, Vistara, IndiGo, Air India, and AIX Connect stood at 90.3 percent, 90 percent, 84.6 percent, 82.2 percent, and 85.7 percent, respectively, in July.

Akasa Air’s passenger load factor came in at 86.4 percent in July down from 89.6 percent in June, 90.3 percent in May, 87.9 percent in April, 88.4 percent in March and 92.4 percent in February. The airline completed two full year of operations on August 7, 2024.

On-Time Performance

AIX Connect turned in an on-time performance of 70.3 percent at the four metro airports – New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Vistara and Akasa Air  were second and third, followed by IndiGo.

On-time performance of airlines fell again in July due to adverse weather conditions and monsoon impacting operations of flights across India.

On-time performance had risen in March 2024 after heavy fog forced flight delays throughout December, January, and February, but dipped again in April due to protests across the Tata Group airlines, and remained low in May, June and July due to adverse weather conditions.

Akasa Air reported a 5 percent rise in punctuality in April, however, all other airlines saw a fall in their punctuality when compared to March 2024.

Air traffic was also higher than pre-COVID levels. In June 2019, domestic airlines flew only 119.05 lakh passengers.

Cancellation factor

The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for July 2024 stood at 1.9 percent, around 43 basis points higher than the 1.43 percent in June, 1.7 percent in May and 0.80 percent in April 2024.

Indiaone Air, a regional airline, recorded the highest cancellation rate of 18 percent, Flybig Air was second with a cancellation rate of 17.16 percent.

Alliance Air had the third-highest cancellation rate at 5.08 percent and Fly91 was fourth at 4.5 percent.

SpiceJet at 3.11 percent, IndiGo at 2.25 percent, Akasa Air at 0.93 percent, AIX Connect at 0.68 percent, Air India at 0.47 percent and Vistara at 0.09 percent saw their cancellation rates fall in July.

Miscellaneous reasons was the biggest basis behind cancellations or termination of flights with a share at 46.1 percent followed by weather condition, technical, operational, and commercial at 38.3 percent, 17.2 percent, 8 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.

Complaints

During July 2024, a total of 1,097 passenger-related complaints were received by scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for July has been around 0.84.

The major reasons for complaints are flight problem-related. Airlines have received a total 1,097 complaints of which 1,095 (approximately 99.8 percent) have been addressed.

Delays and compensations

According to the DGCA data, a total of 1,114 passengers were denied boarding in July and an amount of Rs 1.12 crore was spent by the airlines as compensation and facilities.

In the cancellations category, 1,54,770 passengers were impacted and Rs 1.1 crore was spent by the carriers as compensation and facilities in July.

Around 320,302 passengers were impacted by flight delays in July 2024 and received compensation of Rs 3.4 crore.