By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Domestic air passenger traffic recorded a sharp 43% decline in January as demand slumped during the peak of Omicron cases.
As per aviation regulator’s latest data, around 64.08 lakh domestic passengers travelled by air in January, approximately 43% lower than the 1.12 crore who travelled in December.
Occupancy of the flights termed as the passenger load factors (PLF) fell for all Indian carriers in January as compared to December, the DGCA data said.
Major scheduled commercial airlines registered 60.5-73.4% passenger load factor (PLF) in January, down from 67-86% in the previous month.
The load factors of SpiceJet, IndiGo, Vistara, Go First, Air India and AirAsia India were 73.4%, 66.6%, 61.6%, 66.7%, 60.6% and 60.5 %, respectively, in January 2022, it mentioned.
IndiGo ferried 3.56 million passengers during January to report 55.5% market share and 66.6% PLF, during the month. The airline has carried 6.14 million passengers in December.
Spicejet flew 6.8 lakh passengers and Air India flew 6.56 lakh passengers in January.
The DGCA data said that in January, Go First had the best on-time performance of 94.5% at four metro airports — Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.