Air passenger traffic down by 8%

The financial downslide took its toll on the Indian aviation sector with the passenger traffic recording a negative growth rate of about eight per cent in the first half of this year.

Passengers carried by domestic airlines between January and June came down to about 2.11 crore (21.1 million) from 2.29 crore (22.9 million) in the same month last year, thereby registering negative growth of approximately eight per cent, official traffic data released said.

However, the total domestic passengers carried by the scheduled carriers in the second quarter of 2009 (April to June) was 109.38 lakh as against 98.22 lakh between January and March.

In the second quarter of this year, Kingfisher Airlines and its low-cost subsidiary Kingfisher Red topped the list of Indian carriers by flying 27.72 lakh passengers. It was followed by Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite, together carrying 25.91 lakh, and Air India (Domestic) with 19.18 lakh.

Among the no-frill carriers, IndiGo flew 14.98 lakh air travellers, followed by SpiceJet (13.57 lakh) and GoAir (5.34 lakh), while full-business class carrier Paramount carried 2.30 lakh air travellers, the data showed.