India's airline passenger growth in April was the slowest in 2025 so far, as bad weather disrupted operations. Passengers carried by domestic airlines in April stood at 1.43 crore, a growth of 8.45% over last year, according to data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation released on Wednesday.
The growth rate in March was 8.79%, 11.04% in February and 11.28% in January.
During January-April 2025, over 5.75 crore passengers were ferried, registering an annual growth of 9.87%.
Bad weather was a significant factor in flight disruptions during April, accounting for 38.8% of all cancellations. This directly impacted 20,840 passengers. Consequently, airlines paid out Rs 41.69 lakh in compensation and facilities, marking a 117% increase month-on-month.
Beyond cancellations, delays also affected a large number of travelers, with 96,350 people experiencing delays in April, a 68% rise compared to the previous month. Of these, a substantial 70% of passengers were affected by "reactionary" delays, primarily due to the late arrival of aircraft from earlier journeys.
InterGlobe Aviation Ltd.-operated IndiGo slightly increased its dominant local passenger market share to 64.1% in April from 64% in March. The airline also saw an improvement, with its passenger load factor rising to 86.9% from 84.6%, as per the DGCA report.
The Air India Group also gained market share, rising to 27.2% from 26.7%. Its passenger load factor climbed to 83.3% from 80.6%.
Akasa Air's market share remained unchanged at 5%, but SpiceJet experienced a decrease, falling to 2.6% from 3.3%.
While Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-founded Akasa Air maintained the highest passenger load factor, showing a slight increase to 93% from 92.5%, SpiceJet's load factor improved to 86% from 84.8%.
In airlines, load factor refers to the percentage of available seats on a flight that are filled with paying passengers. It's a key metric used to measure an airline's efficiency in utilising its capacity and can be a good indicator of profitability.
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