India's air passenger traffic dips 82% in June: DGCA

Domestic air passenger traffic declined 82.3 per cent in July to 21.07 lakh last month, data released by the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday showed.

New Delhi: According to the DGCA data, domestic airlines carried 3.72 crore passengers during January-July 2020 period, a drop of 54.84 per cent compared to the corresponding period of previous year.

IndiGo maintained its position as the country's largest carrier by market share. The airline increased its market share to 60.4 per cent in July. SpiceJet market share grew marginally to 16.9 per cent, from 6 per cent and Air India's to 9.1 per cent.

The DGCA data showed that private airline SpiceJet had the maximum passenger load with occupancy rate of 70 per cent in July. IndiGo had a load of 60.2 per cent, GoAir had 50.5 per cent and AirAsia India had a passenger load of 53.1 per cent.

Last week, rating agency ICRA had said that domestic air passenger traffic is likely to witness a de-growth by 41-45 per cent during 2020-21.

ICRA had said that the domestic airlines witness a rather slow upstick in capacity in July 2020 despite recommencement of operations over two months ago.

The aviation sector has been hit hard by coronavirus pandemic with airlines cancelling international flights and inconsistency among the state governments regarding quarantine rules for air passengers.

India resumed domestic passenger flights on May 25 after a gap of two months amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Since June 27, the government has allowed domestic airlines to operate at 45 per cent capacity. Before that, domestic flights were allowed to operate with only one-third capacity.