Pandemic woes continue to plague India's airlines

The load factor of six major domestic airlines -- IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India, GoAir, Vistara and AirAsia India -- stood between 70 per cent and 64.9 per cent in January.

India's domestic air passenger traffic declined around 40 per cent to 77.34 lakh in January 2021 over the year-ago period  as the pandemic continues to hit air travel demand, as per the monthly traffic data released by the aviation regulator, DGCA on Thursday.

The total number of passengers flown by the Indian carriers on domestic routes in January 2020 was 1.27 crore.

The passenger load factor, a measure to assess how much of an airline's passenger carrying capacity has been utilised, during the previous month has shown a declining trend compared to December primarily due to the tourist season, the DGCA said.

The load factor of six major domestic airlines--IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India, GoAir, Vistara and AirAsia India -- stood between 70 per cent and 64.9 per cent in January, as per data.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines  during January 2021 were 77.34 lakh against 127.83 lakh during the corresponding period of  previous year, thereby registering annual growth of -39.60 per cent," it said.

Budget carrier IndiGo flew the most number of passengers at 42.03 lakh with a market share of  54.30 per cent followed by rival carrier Vistara which  carried 9.92 lakh passengers during the month, cornering 12.8 per cent  share of the total domestic traffic in the month.

IndiGo also recorded the highest on-time performance during the month with on an average  93.7 per cent of its flights from four metro airports -- Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad -- departing/arriving on time.

Photograph: ANI Photo