The recommencement of travel after the second wave of COVID-19 hit the country has translated to India's July air passenger traffic rising 61 percent to 50.07 lakh passengers when compared to the previous month, government data showed. India had witnessed domestic air traffic of 31.13 lakh passengers in the month of June and 21.07 lakh passengers in the month of July a year ago.

The passenger load factor or the capacity utilization for most major airlines rose for July with IndiGo’s Passenger load factor at 66.2 percent as compared to 62.7 percent in June. In terms of punctuality, the 15-year-old airline was the most punctual with an on-time performance of 97.3 percent.

Breakdown

For SpiceJet, the passenger load factor in July was at 74.6 percent as compared to 71 percent in June and for the national carrier, Air India, the PLF was at 64.3 percent as compared to 58.4 percent in June.

The Wadia Group-promoted GOFIRST, formerly called Go Air, witnessed PLF of 67.1 percent in July as compared to 70.9 percent in June.

For full-service carrier Vistara, the PLF for July was at 69.2 percent, a rise from 60 percent in June and the capacity utilisation for its sister company AirAsia India was at 53.6 percent, a tad bit lower from 54.4 percent in June.

In terms of market share, IndiGo deployed maximum capacity among its peers and it was visible in its market share for July at 58.6 percent from 54.7 percent in June.

The second-largest domestic carrier Air India saw a decline in July market share at 13.4 percent from 16.5 percent in June.

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet's Market share for July stood at 9.1 percent as compared to 9 percent in June. This was followed by Vistara, whose market share for July stood at 8.1 percent from 7.2 percent in June.

GOFIRST was the fourth largest operator with a share at 6.8 percent, a decline from 8.3 percent in June. AirAsia India maintained a lower capacity deployment and its share slipped to 3.3 percent from 3.4 percent in June.

As the passenger sentiment towards air travel seems to be improving with daily air traffic levels hovering around 2-2.5 lakh passengers, it is expected that the domestic aviation picture will be better for August as compared to July.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Aug 13, 2021 10:34 PM IST