BENGALURU: Due to the tourist season in October, there was a surge in air traffic across the country as compared to the preceding month, reveal statistics from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Altogether 1.18 crore passengers took flights last month, which is the highest figure in a single month for this year.
The DGCA report on the performance of domestic airlines for October, released on its website, reveals that all private airlines took 1.04 crore passengers while Air India took 14.44 lakh passengers. The report also highlights an additional 4.47 lakh passengers were flying in October over September, mainly due to the start of the tourist period.
Compared to the corresponding annual figures from last year, a whopping 20.11% growth has been registered. “There were 11.46 crore passengers carried by domestic airlines from January to October 2018 as against 9.54 crore from January to October 2017,” the report said. The airlines considered for analysis in the report were Air India (Domestic), Jet Airways (plus JetLite), GoAir, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Vistara, Air Asia, Zoom Air, Air Odisha, Air Deccan and Trujet.
Passenger complaints
A total of 669 passenger complaints have been received across all airlines in October as was the case in September. Of these, the maximum number, 35.4%, pertains to baggage issues while 30.2% complaints pertain to flight problems. Airlines appear to have improved their Customer Service last month as complaints in that segment had topped the list in September.
Altogether 1,846 passengers were denied boarding by different airlines in October. Jet Airways (plus JetLite) topped the list with 1,075 passengers while Air India came second with 514 people not being allowed to board. A total of 12,556 passengers across all airlines were affected by flight cancellations in October.
KIA PERFORMANCE
When it comes to On-Time Performance at KIA, Bengaluru did badly when it came to punctuality in October compared to Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad airports in September. Vistara has the best record in Bengaluru at 91.4% as compared to its performance at other airports. Jet Airways and GoAir are the second most punctual airlines in Bengaluru while SpiceJet and IndiGo come third in Bengaluru. All airlines have the worst punctuality figures in Mumbai.