May aviation data: Domestic passenger traffic up 36% on year, 2.5% jump from April

India's domestic air traffic in May rose 36 percent compared to the same month last year. Domestic airlines carried 1.32 crore passengers in May, data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on June 15 shows.

Domestic air traffic in May was also up 2.5 percent compared to April when airlines carried 1.29 crore passengers. Air traffic has seen a considerable jump from pre-Covid levels. In May 2019, domestic airlines carried only 1.22 crore passengers.

The aviation pie

The market share of India's largest airline, IndiGo, rose 390 basis points in May, following the collapse of GoFirst, which stopped all operations on May 2.

IndiGo's market share for May stood at 61.3 percent, after rising 70 basis points in April, 90 basis points in March and 130 basis points in February. The low-cost carrier flew 81.10 lakh passengers in May.

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

Air India became the second-largest domestic carrier in May and garnered a market share of 9.4 percent, flying 12.44 lakh passengers during the period.

The airline had seen its market share fall from 9.2 percent in January to 8.6 percent in April, falling 20-30 basis points every month.

However, due to the grounding of Go First, the airline was able to see its market share rise once again.

Vistara's market share in May rose 30 basis points to 9 percent, the airline flew 11.95 lakh passengers last month.

AirAsia India, which, is also part of the Tata stable, rose up to number four in terms of market share. Its market share rose 30 basis points to 7.9 percent in May, as the carrier served 10.41 lakh passengers.

SpiceJet became the fifth-largest domestic airline operating in India in terms of market share in May following the collapse of Go First.

However, new entrant Akasa Air is on the heels of SpiceJet after the latter saw its market share fall another 40 basis points in May, while the former recorded an 80 basis points jump in market share.

SpiceJet carried 7.2 lakh passengers in May to garner a market share of 5.4 percent, while Akasa Air carried 6.29 lakh passengers to garner a market share of 4.8 percent in May.

Most of GoFirst's market share of 6.4 percent carrying 8.29 lakh passengers in April went the way of IndiGo last month, as the latter carried 7.04 lakh more passengers in May when compared to April.

The passenger load factor, or the occupancy rate, of SpiceJet, Vistara, IndiGo, Air India and AirAsia India stood at 94.8 percent, 93.2 percent, 91.5 percent, 90.1 percent, and 92.8 percent, respectively, in May.

Akasa Air, India's newest carrier, saw a rise in its passenger load factor to 91.1 percent in May, its tenth month of operations, from 73.6 percent in March and 84.9 percent in April.

As many as 566 passenger complaints were received in May, data shows. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried was around 0.42.

The rise in passenger complaints in May was mainly due to the collapse of Go First's operations during the month.

In May, Akasa Air had the best on-time performance, for the third straight month in a row, of 92.6 percent at four metro airports — Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

IndiGo and Vistara were the second and third followed by Air Asia.