Domestic Air Traffic Rises 2 Per Cent In April YoY, IndiGo Maintains Hold On 60 Per Cent Of Market Share

The data revealed that the passenger load factor or the occupancy rate remained the highest in SpiceJet and Vistara at 90.9 per cent each in April

India’s aviation industry clocked a growth in domestic air traffic in April 2024, official data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation revealed. The data showed that the domestic airlines flew 132 lakh passengers in April 2024, against 128.88 lakh passengers flown during the same month a year earlier, marking a growth of 2.42 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. 

The DGCA shared the data via a post on social media platform, X. The data revealed that the passenger load factor or the occupancy rate remained the highest in SpiceJet and Vistara at 90.9 per cent each in April. Akasa Air logged passenger load factor at 87.9 per cent, followed by IndiGo at 86.6 per cent, AIX Connect at 85.8 per cent, and Air India at 84.3 per cent.

Cancellations

The data showed that overall cancellation rate in domestic airlines stood at 0.80 per cent in April 2024. Amongst the carriers, regional airline Flybig clocked the highest cancellation rate of 10 per cent, followed by Indiaone Air at 9.55 per cent. 

Vistara reported a cancellation rate of 2.40 per cent, while SpiceJet stood at 1.48 per cent. AIX Connect came sixth in the list with a cancellation rate of 0.55 per cent, while IndiGo stood seventh with a rate of 0.47 per cent. 

Notably, Vistara cancelled several flights in early April due to crew unavailability leading to major operational challenges. 

The airlines explained the delay with miscellaneous reasons, such as Vistara and then Air India cancelling flights due to crew protests. Technical concerns remained the second highest reason behind flight cancellations at 42.3 per cent, while other reasons like weather and operational factors contributed to 16.2 per cent and 12.6 per cent of the cancellations respectively.

Market Share

In 2024 so far, IndiGo commanded the majority share in the Indian aviation market. At 60.4 per cent, the carrier flew 315.96 lakh passengers in the year till last month. In April itself, IndiGo flew 80 lakh passengers. 

Air India controlled the second-largest share in the aviation market and dominated 13.1 per cent of the market in 2024 so far. The carrier flew 68.41 lakh passengers in the year so far. Vistara came third in the list and controlled 9.7 per cent of the pie with 50.60 lakh passengers in 2024 so far.

AIX Connect, SpiceJet, and Akasa Air accounted for 5.8 per cent, 5.2 per cent, and 4.5 per cent of the Indian aviation market respectively in 2024. 

Complaints

The scheduled domestic airlines received 774 passenger related complaints during April, where the number of complaints per 10,000 passengers stood at 0.59. 

Indiaone Air emerged on the top in this metric with 279 complaints per 10,000 passengers, followed by Fly Big with 26.7 complaints. SpiceJet recorded 4.7 complaints per 10,000 passengers, and Air India logged 0.9 complaints. 

Amongst the several reasons behind the complaints, flight problem related concerns dominated at 36.7 per cent, followed by refund issues at 18.1 per cent. Other major factors behind the complaints were baggage (17.8 per cent) and customer service (10.1 per cent).