New Delhi, Sep 22 : Domestic air passenger traffic rose 18.66 percent in August to 67.60 lakh, with SpiceJet leading the pack with 92.1 percent capacity utilisation, official data showed on Tuesday.
The domestic passenger traffic during August 2014 stood at 56.97 lakh.
The data furnished by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed that passenger traffic during January-August period grew by 20.84 percent.
"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-August 2015 were 523.55 lakh as against 433.24 lakh (in August 2014), a growth of 20.84 percent," the DGCA said in its statistical analysis.
During July, passenger traffic rose 29 percent to 67.45 lakh, from 52.16 lakh in July last year.
Earlier, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) had said that India's domestic demand had soared owing to significant increases in service frequencies and improvements in economic growth.
The DGCA data showed that low cost carrier (LCC) SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor during the month under review at 92.1 percent.
"We always believe in maximising asset utilization and unit revenues. Every empty seat that flies is an opportunity lost and with just 1 percent of the Indian population travelling by air, we have a huge potential market which we just cannot afford to ignore," said Shilpa Bhatia, senior vice president and head of sales and distribution, SpiceJet.
The LCC was followed by the new entrant Trujet (83.7), Jet Airways (80.8), AirAsia India (80.2), Air India's domestic operations (79.3), JetLite (78.7), Air Costa (77.3), Air Pegasus (77.1), IndiGo (76.8), GoAir (75.6), AirAsia India (72.1) and Vistara (62.9).
At the same time, data on the on-time performance showed Vistara leading the industry with 95.1 percent punctuality at four major airports of Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
It was followed by IndiGo (90.6), Jet Airways and JetLite (85.8), SpiceJet (77.3) and Air India's domestic operations (76.1) being on schedule.
Meanwhile, Air Pegasus had the highest numbers of cancellations at 5.81 percent followed by Trujet (5.66), Air India's domestic operations (1.20), Air Costa (0.79), SpiceJet (0.70), GoAir (0.44), JetLite (0.44), Jet Airways (0.23), IndiGo (0.20) and Vistara (0.19).
"The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for August 2015 has been 0.5 percent," the aviation regulator said.
According to the data, a total of 770 passenger related complaints had been received.
Trujet had the highest complaints rate per 10,000 passengers in the month under review.
Trujet's share stood at (5.00). It was followed by Air India's domestic operations (1.7), Air Pegasus, SpiceJet, Jet Airways and JetLite (1.4), GoAir (1.3), AirAsia India (1.00), Air Costa (0.8), IndiGo (0.7) and Vistara (0.2).
LCC IndiGo achieved the highest market share at 35.3 percent followed by Jet Airways (19.8), Air India (16.6), SpiceJet (12.3), GoAir (8.1) and JetLite (3 percent).
AirAsia India had a market penetration of 2.00 percent, Vistara reported a market share of 1.5 percent, followed by Air Costa's (0.9), Air Pegasus (0.2) and Trujet (0.3).
