India's Domestic Air Traffic Sees Double-Digit Growth in November

India's commercial airlines flew 1.42 crore passengers on the domestic routes in November this year, which translates into a robust 12 percent increase compared to the same month in the previous year, according to figures compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

IndiGo remained the market leader, with a share of 63.6% in air traffic; Air India stood at the second position with 24.4%, followed by Akasa Air at 4.7% and SpiceJet at 3.1%. The market share of Alliance Air remained constant at 0.7% during the month.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-November 2024 were 1,464.02 lakh as against 1,382.34 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year thereby registering an annual growth of 5.91% and monthly growth of 11.90%," the DGCA report stated.

Domestic air passenger traffic was at 142.52 lakh in November compared to 127.36 lakh in the same period a year ago. The number of flyers that took to Indian skies in Nov was also higher than the corresponding figure of 1.36 crore for October.

However, the On Time Performance (OTP) of scheduled domestic airlines at Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai declined during November with passengers facing longer delays.

IndiGo's OTP stood at 74.5% while that of Akasa Air and SpiceJet touched 66.4% and 62.5%, respectively.
Data also showed the OTP of Air India and Alliance Air at 58.8% and 58.9%, respectively.
2,24,904 passengers were hit by delays in November. The airlines paid up close to ₹2.9 crore towards the facilitation of stranded passengers.

As many as 624 passenger-related complaints received by scheduled domestic airlines in November.

A total of 3,539 passengers were not allowed to board the flights in November and incurred an expenditure of ₹2.84 crore by the airlines in compensation and arranging facilities to them.

Figures also showed that as many as 27,577 passengers were affected by the cancellation of flights for which airlines spent ₹36.79 lakh as compensation and providing facilities.