Domestic air traffic increases 3% in January-May

India's domestic air traffic between January and May was almost three per cent higher than the same period last year as IndiGo led the market share flying almost 32 per cent of passengers last month.

All Indian carriers flew 60.22 lakh (6.02 million) passengers in May compared to 57.10 lakh (5.71 million) in April, while the January-May figure stood at 267.22 lakh (Rs 2.67 million) as against 260 lakh (2.6 million) in the same period last year recording a 2.78 per cent growth, latest official air traffic data showed.

IndiGo continued to dominate the scene in terms of market share cornering 31.7 per cent in May, followed by Jet Airways-JetLite combine with 21 per cent, Air India with 18.6 per cent, SpiceJet 17.9 per cent and GoAir 9.8

per cent.

Data for seat factor showed full-service Air India leaving Jet Airways behind and catching up with no-frill carriers like IndiGo, GoAir and SpiceJet.

Seat factor or passenger load factor of an airline is a measure of how much of an airline's passenger carrying capacity is used or the average percentage of seats per aircraft filled.

The PLF for IndiGo, GoAir, SpiceJet and JetLite was 82 per cent, 81.8 per cent, 81.3 per cent and 80 per cent respectively, which was closely followed by Air India with 79.5 per cent while Jet Airways recorded 75.2 per cent, the data showed.