Traffic surges for airlines on summer booking tailwind

New Delhi, June 19: Driven by summer bookings, domestic air travel surged a healthy 18.35% in April over the same period last year, while budget carrier IndiGo continued its market domination with more than a third of the total traffic pie in the kitty.

All Indian carriers together ferried a total of 71.27 lakh passengers in May as compared to 60.22 lakh passengers during May 2014, according to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data for the month.

During May, another budget airline SpiceJet clocked the highest seat factor at 93.1% helped by a series of low-fare schemes, announced by the carrier in the previous month.

In terms of number of passengers, while IndiGo transported 27.69 lakh, the number of passengers flown by Jet Airways during the reporting month stood at 13.01 lakh.

National carrier Air India's share in the total passenger traffic stood at 15.8% cent as it ferried 11.8 passengers in the month.

The two new airlines — AirAsia India and Vistara — ransported less than one lakh passengers in the month at 0.94 lakh and 0.93 lakh passengers respectively.

Air Costa transported 0.61 lakh passengers while Air Pegasus 0.06 lakh.

IndiGo also recorded a high load factor of 91.9%, followed by GoAir 89.4%, AirAsia India 81.45 and Air Costa 81.2%.

Jet Airways' load factor during May stood at 81.1% while that of Air India at 80.4%.

The seat factor of the domestic airline rose over the previous month primarily due to the onset of tourist season, the DGCA said.