India’s domestic air passenger traffic rose by 6.12 per cent to 16.13 crore in 2024 from 15.2 crore in the previous year, according to the latest data compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The country’s commercial airlines also flew more than 1.49 crore passengers on domestic routes in December 2024, which represents an increase of 8.19 per cent compared to the corresponding figure of 1.38 crore for December 2023.

In December, the market share of IndiGo stood at 64.4 per cent while that of Air India touched 26.4 per cent. Akasa Air and SpiceJet had a share of 4.6 per cent and 3.3 per cent, respectively.

According to the DGCA data, IndiGo’s share in the domestic air passenger traffic increased from 60.5 per cent in 2023 to 61.9 per cent in 2024 with the airline flying 9.99 crore domestic passengers during the year. In the same period, the share of SpiceJet decreased from 5.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent. The budget carrier carried 60 lakh air passengers within India in 2024.

Figures for the on-time Performance (OTP) in December show that IndiGo had the highest OTP of 73.4 per cent, followed by Air India (67.6 per cent), Akasa Air (62.7 per cent), SpiceJet (61.5 per cent) and Alliance Air (55.6 per cent).

The overall flight cancellation rate of the scheduled domestic carriers stood at 1.07 per cent in December. Flight cancellations hit 67,622 passengers and airlines had to shell out Rs 1.26 crore for compensation and facilities. The data also showed that 2.8 lakh passengers were impacted due to flight delays and airlines paid Rs 3.78 crore towards facilitation in December.

During the month, 2,147 passengers were denied boarding for which airlines spent Rs 1.76 crore as compensation and facilities.

Meanwhile, airlines are expanding their fleet as well as networks to meet the rising air travel demand in the country, which is one of the world's fastest-growing civil aviation markets.

The Air India Group currently operates a fleet of about 300 commercial planes. The Group expects its size to grow to about 400 commercial planes in the next three years.