By IANS,
New Delhi : Domestic air passenger traffic, which had a free fall for the last five months, gained some momentum in October as it grew by 13.36 percent and stood at 45.50 lakh from 40.18 lakh in September 2012, the civil aviation ministry said Tuesday.
“A total of 5.37 lakh more passengers travelled in the month of October 2012 compared to September 2012,” the civil aviation ministry said in a statement.
The respite came after the passenger traffic fell 8.03 percent for the fifth straight month in September and stood at 40.18 lakh from 43.69 lakh in August.
The trend started in May during which the traffic came down 0.87 percent and stood at 54.48 lakh from 54.96 lakh in the corresponding month of 2011. June had recorded a substantial fall of 3.84 percent at 51.08 lakh from 53.12 lakh in the like month of 2011.
The civil aviation ministry data, however, showed that the total passengers carried by all domestic airlines in the January-October period fell by 2.47 percent at 483.94 lakh passengers from 496.19 lakh during the corresponding month of 2011.
The total passengers carried by all the domestic airlines in the January-September period had grown marginally by 0.90 percent at 438.39 lakh passengers from 442.18 lakh during the corresponding period of 2011.
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had told IANS earlier that the economic slowdown has adversely affected passenger traffic growth in the past couple of months but a rebound is evident.
On a standalone basis, IndiGo had the largest market share of 27.8 percent, followed by Air India (20.8 percent), SpiceJet (19.1 percent), Jet Airways (18.1 percent), Go Air (7.6 percent) and Jetlite (6.6 percent).