May records highest domestic traffic, more than 4 lakh passengers took flights daily

The domestic air passenger traffic reached the highest in May, in more than three years, as 1.31 crore travellers took flights.  According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation data, the domestic air passenger traffic breached the 1.3 crore mark for the first time since December 2019, when it stood at the same level.

The new record highlights the fact that the domestic aviation industry, along with its global counterparts, is now surpassing pre-COVID-19 level of passenger traffic. 

The total number of domestic flights in May did take a dip, due to the near complete grounding of Go First flights, but the total number of passengers had been steadily climbing over the past couple of months.

March 2023 saw a total of 92,098 flights and 1.28 crore passengers, while April  saw 88,749 total domestic flights with 1.28 crore passengers. The passenger load factor for most domestic airlines stood at over 89 percent. 

Data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) revealed that India’s domestic air traffic had risen by 18.3 percent year-on-year in April 2023 and load factor had increased by over 88 percent. 

Air India and Vistara continued their switch to using wide-body aircraft, while their integration process is still ongoing. Vistara even became the first domestic carrier to use sustainable aviation jet fuel on a wide-body aircraft. Meanwhile, Indigo continued to increase its fleet utilisation rates. The airline is still by far the biggest in the domestic market. 

A portion of the dip in the number of flights was witnessed due to the fact that Go First has not operated any flights after May 3 following engine issues with a significant portion of its fleet. The engine provider Pratt & Whitney was blamed by the airline for not abiding by an arbitration order, which asked the company to provide spare engines to Go First due to numerous technical defects in the original engines it had provided.