Low airfares help rise in air passenger count

The first five months of 2016 witnessed a 22.87% growth in the number of passengers carried by domestic airlines compared with the same period last year, according to latest official figures.

While 322.32 lakh passengers flew last year, it rose to 396.04 lakh this year. In May this year, 86.69 lakh flew in domestic carriers against 71.27 lakh, a rise of 21.63%.

All domestic carriers showed an increase in seat occupancy in May, with industry watchers saying that the lower airfares are attracting more people to flying.

SpiceJet continued to have the highest seat occupancy of 93.5% compared with 93.2% in April. All carriers had seat occupancy above 80% with Air India having the sharpest rise from 78.9% to 84.7%.

The passenger load factor in the month of May has slightly increased compared with previous month primarily due to the onset of tourist season, with almost all carriers clocking between 80-93% seat factor during April.

Budget carrier IndiGo, with the highest market share of 38.5%, ferried the highest number of 33.37 lakh passengers in May, followed by Jet Airways with 13.94 lakh and national carrier Air India flying 13.34 lakh passengers, respectively.

The number of passengers flown by SpiceJet and GoAir stood at 10.98 lakh and 7.91 lakh, respectively, according to the data.

It also showed that the selling of tickets in the highest fare bucket was very miniscule for all airlines.
DH News Service