The month of May this year saw the highest number of air travellers since the pandemic at 1.20 crore, according to DGCA’s monthly data.
May also saw a growth of 9.8% in domestic air passenger traffic.
The numbers seen in the month are close to those seen in February 2020 — at 1.23 crore passengers — before travel restrictions on account of COVID-19 began to be imposed in the country, followed by a total ban on domestic and international flights in the last week of March 2020.
Air India was, however, the only airline in the country that saw passenger numbers fall in May as compared to April. Its market share also shrank to 6.8% – which was the lowest in the recent past. It was also the first airline in the country that saw passenger numbers fall in May compared with April.
IndiGo, which has been increasing its share of the pie, cornered 57.9% of the market share.
The robust demand also led to airlines improve their seat occupancy.
SpiceJet saw 89.1% of its seats sold on an average, followed by GoFirst at 86.5% and Vistara at 84.8%.
