Every month, India’s aviation regulator, the DGCA, releases data for all Indian carriers, giving us a detailed view of the month gone by. The first of such reports of 2023 paints a positive picture of just how much the industry has recovered since last year and how much the aviation landscape has changed in the country.

Air India is the second-largest domestic airline

India’s domestic air traffic in January 2023 registered a 95.72% year-on-year growth, with airlines carrying around 12.5 million passengers. A year ago, when India was under the grip of the Omicron wave, around 6.4 million passengers flew in January 2022.

IndiGo continues to be the largest airline in the country, although its market share has been gradually declining over the last few months; in January, it was 54.6%. Air India was India’s second-largest domestic airline by market share, registering a 9.2% hold on the traffic.

Air India at Kushok Bakula Rimpochhe Airport
Photo: Tooykrub/Shutterstock

The airline completed a year as a private carrier under the Tata brand and eventually wants to corner 30% of India’s domestic market. While that’s still a few years away, Air India has certainly made quick improvements in just over a year.

The third on the list was Vistara, another full-service carrier under the Tata Group, with an 8.8% market share.

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Akasa Air’s expansion continued

India’s newest national-level airline Akasa Air has also made impressive strides since starting operations in August 2022. The airline had a 2.8% market share last month as it started several new flights and steadily increased its fleet size.

Akasa recently launched service to Varanasi from Bengaluru, and now has a network that includes 14 destinations, namely, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati, Agartala, Pune, Visakhapatnam, Lucknow, Goa, Hyderabad, and Varanasi.

Akasa Air Boeing
Photo: Boeing

IndiGo was the most punctual

January wasn’t a great month as far as on-time performance is concerned. IndiGo came out on top with an OTP of 84.6% and was the only airline to have crossed the 80s mark. The second most punctual airline was Akasa Air, with an OTP of 76.9%.

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Vistara had 76.6% timely departures, followed by Air India at 75.7%. AirAsia India, SpiceJet, and Alliance Air registered OTPs of 61.1%, 58.9%, and 54.6%, respectively. Go First was the least punctual airline, with just 50.7% of timely departures in January 2023.

Indigo A320
Photo: Jeerapan Jankaew/Shutterstock

Passenger load factor saw an overall dip

The passenger load factor of all airlines in India saw a slight dip in January following a busy travel period in December 2022. SpiceJet has consistently performed well on its PLF, and January was no exception, with the airline registering a load factor of 91%.

Go First was second on the list with a PLF of 90.9%, while Vistara came in third with a load factor of 89.4%. As a comparison, these three airlines had PLFs of 92.7%, 92.6%, and 91.9%, respectively, in December.

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