India's domestic air traffic exceeds 16.13 crore in 2024

New Delhi: India's domestic air traffic saw a 6pc year-on-year (YoY) increase, with 16.13 crore passengers traveling in 2024, compared to 15.2 million during the same period in 2023, according to the latest official data. 

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) reported on Wednesday that airlines carried over 1.49 crore passengers in December 2024, marking an 8.19% rise compared to nearly 1.38 crore passengers in December 2023.

To meet the growing demand for air travel, airlines are expanding both their fleets and networks. The DGCA data also revealed an 8.19pc increase in the number of passengers carried on a month-to-month basis, compared to the same month in the previous year.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January December 2024 were 1,613.31 lakh as against 1,520.32 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering an annual growth of 6.12 per cent and monthly growth of 8.19 per cent," DGCA said in its report. 

The December traffic report for major commercial airlines in India (Air India group, IndiGo, Akasa Air, and SpiceJet) revealed that SpiceJet had the highest cancellation rate, followed by IndiGo in second place. The overall cancellation rate for scheduled domestic airlines in December 2024 was 1.07 per cent.

The airline with the highest cancellation rate was Fly Big, at 19.23 per cent, followed by Alliance Air and IndiaOne Air, with rates of 4.35 per cent and 2.83 per cent, respectively, according to the DGCA's traffic data report.

SpiceJet's cancellation rate stood at 1.81 per cent, while IndiGo had a slightly lower rate of 1.17 per cent.

The report highlighted that the primary causes of flight cancellations were miscellaneous, technical, operational, and weather-related issues. According to the data, 44.4 per cent of cancellations were due to miscellaneous reasons, followed by weather at 27.2 per cent, technical issues at 20.8 per cent, operational factors at 6.4 per cent, and 1.3 per cent due to commercial reasons.

-B