Domestic air passengers up 96% last month over January 2022

MUMBAI: India registered a domestic passenger traffic growth of 96% in January 2023 as airlines flew 125 lakh passengers compared to 64 lakh flown in January 2022, the month when the Covid third wave had started hitting air travel.
This January also marked the beginning of the conventional lean quarter for domestic travel as Indian carriers flew about two lakh fewer passengers when compared to the previous month, December 2022, showed monthly traffic data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Monday. Every single carrier flew fewer passengers in January than in December, the month when year-end travel demand had long queues at metro airports such as Delhi and Mumbai.

IndiGo, for instance, which holds a market share of 68.5%, had a passenger load factor (PLF) of 87.5% in December, which fell to 82% in January. Similarly, Air India’s load fell from 89% in December to 87.5% in January.
In January, airlines ‘denied boarding’ to 594 passengers and paid about Rs 37 lakh towards compensation. Over 27,000 passengers were affected by flight cancellations and airlines paid Rs 48 lakh towards compensation. Flight delays hit 2.4 lakh passengers which had airlines pay Rs 268 lakh towards facilitation.

Weather was the top reason for flight disruptions, accounting for 86.5% of cancellations, followed by commercial reasons at 5.8% and technical reasons by 4.8 %. When it came to passenger complaints, a total of 418 complaints were filed by passengers against all carriers with the most filed against Alliance Air at seven complaints per 10,000 passengers flown. Problem with flights was the leading cause of passenger complaints in January.
In the punctuality race, IndiGo emerged the topper with 84.6% of its flights operated to/from the four metros departing/arriving on time or within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. It was followed by Akasa Air at 76.9% and Vistara at 76.6 %.