Domestic air traffic grew by 20% in February

Seat occupancy on planes also improves

Domestic air traffic saw a growth of 20% in February compared with the previous month when there was a sharp decline on account of Omicron variant of COVID-19.

India airlines ferried a total of 76.96 lakh passengers in February compared with 64.08 lakh passengers in January.

Domestic air traffic was on the mend since July last year and saw a consistent rise till December growing almost fourfold in this time frame. But in January, all the gains were halved following new restrictions imposed by States in the wake of rising Omicron cases.

Airlines also saw a significant improvement in average seat occupancy (or passenger load factor). SpiceJet saw an occupancy of 89.1%, Vistara 87.1%, GoFirst 87% and IndiGo 85%. This was an improvement of more than 20 percentage points for most carriers.

IndiGo saw a slight depletion in its market share, which dropped from 55.5% in January to 51.3% in February. Vistara saw a noticeable increase in its market share, that increased from 7.5% to 9.7% during the same comparative period. Air India also saw its market share climb from 10.2% to 11.1%.