Air passenger traffic falls for third straight month

New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) Domestic air passenger traffic fell 11.17 percent for the third straight month in July, which stood at 45.37 lakh from 51.08 lakh travellers in June, official data showed Friday.

The trend started in May during which passenger traffic came down by 0.87 percent and stood at 54.48 lakh from 54.96 lakh carried in the corresponding month of 2011. June recorded a substantial fall of 3.84 percent at 51.08 lakh from 53.12 lakh in the like month of 2011.

The data released by the civil aviation ministry, however, showed the total passengers carried by all the domestic airlines in the January-July period grew by a marginal 1.74 percent at 354.52 lakh passengers from 348.47 lakh during the corresponding month of 2011.

"Number of passengers carried by them (domestic airlines) were 354.52 lakh between January-July 2012 as against 348.47 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year showing the passenger traffic growth of 1.74 percent," the data showed.

On a standalone basis, IndiGo had the largest market share of 27 percent, followed by Jet Airways, 19.4 percent, Air India, 18.2 percent, SpiceJet, 17.8 percent, JetLite, 7.2 percent, Go Air, 7 percent, and Kingfisher Airlines, 3.4 percent.