New Delhi: The number of passengers flying domestic airlines dropped to 113.49 lakh in February compared to 125.08 lakh in the previous month, according to data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Private carriers flew 98.96 lakh passengers in February compared to 109.78 lakh in January. The number of passengers flown by government-owned Air India also dropped to 14.53 lakh as against 15.30 lakh in the same period.
Taken together in the first two months of calendar 2019, however, the number of flyers was 238.56 lakh compared to 222.09 lakh in January and February of 2018, marking a growth of 7.42 percent.
The overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines for last month was 1.89 percent, data showed. Air India had the highest cancellation of 8.15 percent followed by Air Asia 2.46 percent and Jet Airways 2.31 percent.
Low-cost airline SpiceJet had the highest passenger load factor of 94 percent in February, followed by GoAir at 92.6 percent, AirAsia India at 91.8 percent, Vistara at 89.1 percent and IndiGo at 88.4 percent.
“The passenger load factor in February has shown increasing trend primarily due to airlines offering promotional fares, resulting in increasing demand,” said the aviation regulator.
Jet Airways, with mounting debts and nearly one-third of its fleet grounded, too recorded a passenger load factor of 89.4 percent.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]