Turbulence and take-offs: India’s air traffic goes up even as a major airline stops to fly 

IndiGo gained the maximum domestic market share last month after Go First stopped flying from May 2, 2023

Our Bureau
Mumbai/New Delhi

India’s domestic air passenger traffic grew 15 per cent year-on-year to 132.67 lakh passengers in May 2023, according to DGCA data. The country’s domestic air passenger traffic was 114.67 lakh passengers in the year-ago period.

Low-cost carrier IndiGo increased its market share to 61.4 per cent from 57.5 per cent during the previous month, carrying a total of 81.10 lakh passengers, as per the DGCA data released on Thursday. Last month also saw the grounding of city-based carrier Go First.

Go First, which is currently undergoing insolvency proceedings at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), has not flown since May 3.

All three Tata Group airlines — Air India, AirAsia India and Vistara (which is 49 per cent owned by Singapore Airlines) — also witnessed their market share growing sequentially in May 2023, cornering 9.4 per cent, 7.9 per cent and 9 per cent of the total traffic pie, respectively.

The total number of passengers flown by Air India and Vistara during the month under review stood at 12.44 lakh and 11.95 lakh, respectively. AirAsia India carried 10.41 lakh passengers in May 2023, the data showed.

The combined total of these three airlines was 34.8 lakh passengers, 26.3 per cent of the total domestic air passenger traffic in May 2023. The market share of Akasa Air, which launched its air services in August 2022, also rose to 4.8 per cent in the previous month compared to 4 per cent in April 2023.

On punctuality parameters, Akasa Air recorded an on-time performance of 92.6 per cent, the highest among all the domestic carriers from four key metro airports in May, as per the data.

On the other hand, it has been reported that IndiGo gained the maximum domestic market share last month after Go First stopped flying from May 2, 2023.

The Wadia Group airline had 6.4% market share in April which was subsequently lapped up by other big airlines. Big blue IndiGo saw its domestic market share rise by 3.9% from 57.5% in April to 61.4% May, thereby crossing the 60% mark possibly for the first time.

The three Tata Group airlines — Air India plus Vistara plus AirAsia India — saw this increase 1.4% from 24.9% to 26.3% in the same period. And the youngest airline, Akasa, saw an increase of 0.8% from 4% to 4.8%, according to DGAC data.

SpiceJet, which is facing its own troubles including insolvency pleas by unpaid parties and requests from lessors to take back planes, did not gain from Go collapse. The budget carrier, in fact, saw its domestic market share fall from 5.8% in April to 5.4% this May.

DGCA data shows 1.3 crore people flew within the country this May, 15% more than 1.1 crore same month last year despite the Wadia Group airline collapsing. The shutdown in peak summer travel month saw domestic flights of all big Indian carriers going over 90% full with the occupancy ranging from SpiceJet’s 94.8% to Air India’s 90.1%.

Go First used to fly almost 30,000 domestic passengers daily. Not surprisingly, the regulator saw maximum number of passenger complaints related to refunds.