October air passenger traffic up 13% YoY

Domestic air passenger traffic continued its growth momentum in October and witnessed a growth of 25% to nearly 4mn from 3.2mn during the same period last year. Compared with September this year, air passenger traffic grew by 13% in October. The total domestic passengers carried by the local Scheduled Airlines in October were 39.69 lakhs versus 35.05 lakhs in September.

Among the airlines, Jet Airways and its subsidiary JetLite, whose passenger count fell last month due to the pilot’s strike, emerged as the market leader at 27.7% followed by Kingfisher Airlines at 20.7%. The state-owned carrier Air India (Domestic) improved its market share to 18.6% from 17.5% last month. Among the low-cost carriers, IndiGo commanded the maximum share at 14.3% followed by SpiceJet at 13.2%, GoAir at 5.8% and Paramount at 2%.

The seat factor in October increased vis-à-vis September primarily due to onset of the tourist season. The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for the month has been 1.6%. Passengers carried by domestic airlines from January to October were 360.09 lakhs as against 348.51 lakhs in the corresponding period of 2008, thereby registering a growth of 3.32%.