NEW DELHI: India’s domestic air travel rise has flat-lined after 52 straight months of double and two months of single-digit growth. This March saw 1,15,96,000 domestic passengers, up just 0.1% from 1,15,80,000 in the same month last year. This was due to the sudden grounding of planes — 13 Boeing 737 Max of Spice-Jet on March 13 and lessors taking back 35 of Jet Airways during the month.
Till recently, low-cost carriers accounted for almost two-thirds of all domestic air travellers. However in March this year, for the first time in Indian aviation history, 76.9% of domestic passengers flew low-cost airlines. The rest 23.1% flew with Air India, Jet and Vistara.
The reduced capacity saw spot airfares going through the roof, which led to fewer people opting to fly. And the cancellations, shows DGCA data for March 2019, saw 2.7 lakh domestic passengers finding their flights scrapped.
