Domestic air traffic declined 4.2 per cent to little over 1.38 crore in April compared to March amid multiple headwinds, including relatively softer travel demand.
The latest data from aviation watchdog DGCA showed that carriers flew more than 1.38 crore passengers in April, 3.47 per cent lower than over 1.43 crore passengers carried in April last year. The decline is 4.2 per cent compared to the traffic of 1.44 crore passengers recorded in March. "Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January - April 2026 were 575.49 lakhs as against 575.13 lakhs during the corresponding period of the previous year thereby registering an annual growth of 0.06 per cent and monthly growth of -3.47 per cent," DGCA said in its report for the month of April.
Airlines have been facing multiple headwinds, including rising operational costs due to higher fuel prices and relatively slower demand.
Amid the challenging scenario, carriers have also temporarily trimmed their network. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data showed that IndiGo's market share rose to 65 per cent in April from 63.3 per cent in March while that of Air India Group fell to 24.7 per cent from 26.2 per cent.
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The market share of Akasa Air inched up to 5.8 per cent last from 5.4 per cent in March and that of SpiceJet declined to 3.4 per cent from 3.8 per cent during the same period. In April, state-owned Alliance Air's share shrunk to 0.3 per cent from 0.6 per cent in March.
A total of 3,266 passenger-related complaints were received by scheduled domestic airlines in April and the number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month stood at 2.36, as per DGCA. In terms of On-Time Performance (OTP) in April, IndiGo topped the list at 88.5 per cent, followed by Air India Group (82.4 per cent), Akasa Air (81.4 per cent), Alliance Air (71.2 per cent) and SpiceJet (31.2 per cent).
OTP is computed for ten major airports -- Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Cochin, Guwahati and Lucknow. Last month, around 1.12 per cent of the flights were delayed by more than two hours. According to DGCA data, over 1.35 lakh passengers were affected by flight delays and airlines shelled out little over Rs 2.41 crore towards facilitation whereas 77,065 passengers were impacted by flight cancellations and in this regard, carriers paid Rs 2.04 crore towards compensation and facilities.
A total of 641 passengers were denied boarding and the airlines shelled out Rs 57.65 lakh for compensation and facilities.
(rewrite and maintain length)
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