NEW DELHI: India did not witness a decline in number of international air travellers in the first six months of 2019 over same period last year despite Jet Airways — which for many years was the single biggest airline in terms of flying people in and out of the country — shutting down this April.
IndiGo’s spectacular 55.5% increase in number of foreign flyers over this period along with an impressive rise by Air India Express and GoAir beginning foreign flights ensured this no mean feat. In its last quarter of operation (April-June), the 1993-founded Jet Airways flew just 57,635 international travellers — almost a third of the about 1.5 lakh by GoAir which started international operations last October only.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) released the international air travel data for April-June 2019 on Friday. Jet Airways had stopped flying on April 17-18. The airline was for past few years the single biggest airline in terms of international air travel. Its sudden grounding meant that Indian carriers saw their international carriage fall by 2.7% in January-June 2019, over same period last year.
