The domestic market leader IndiGo flew 5 million passengers in October 2018, becoming the first airline to achieve this feat. Based on the report released by the government regulatory body of airlines Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), IndiGo has flown 50.75 lakh passengers in October. The airline continues to remain as the biggest carrier last month having a market share of 42.8% followed by Jet Airways and Air India with 14.9% and 12.2% respectively.
In the period January to October 2018, the domestic airlines have flown 11.46 crores passengers as against 954.45 lakhs during the same period in the previous year, marking a passenger growth of 20.11%. Regarding passenger load factor, SpiceJet scored the highest with 90.8% in October 2018, compared to 93.2% last month. Go Air follows SpiceJet with 84.1% occupancy and 83.1% by IndiGo. The passenger load factor has shown an increasing trend for all airlines due to the onset of the tourist season.
The overall cancellation rate of the domestic airlines for October stood at 1.16%. The reasons for cancellations vary, with 26.6% reasons cited as operational, 16% quoted as technical, 6.6% cited the reason as weather, 4.7% as commercial. Around 46.1% mention the reason as miscellaneous.
Baggage-related Complaints are Increasing
During October, the airlines received around 669 passenger complaints. Most of the complaints are baggage related, with around 35.4%. Flight problems constitute the next, with around 30.2% people complaining about it. Approximately 21.8% complaint about customer service and 3.6% people complained about the staff behaviour. The complaints related to baggage shows a significant increase. In August, the baggage-related complaints were 28%. In September, this reduced to 26%. But, in October, it reached 35.4%. The complaints about flight problems too show a rise. It was 27.8% in August 2018 and 24.7% in September 2018.
Jet Airways along with JetLite reported 214 complaints, followed by Air India (dom) with 197 complaints in total. IndiGo received 172 complaints, making it the third.
