For the first time in India on Sunday, the number of domestic air passengers in a single day crossed 5 lakh, setting a new record. This reflects strong travel demand during the festive and wedding season. In a social media post on Monday evening, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said, “The skies over India witnessed a historic milestone on November 17 when 5,05,412 passengers flew on domestic flights in a single day, crossing the 5 lakh mark for the first time.” he.
According to Ministry data, on Sunday (November 17), airlines carried 5,05,412 passengers and the number of passengers who flew was 3,173. Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said these figures show that air travel is now more accessible to people and this has been made possible by schemes like ‘Uplabdhi Udaan’ (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik).
‘It’s not just numbers…’
The UDAN Regional Air Connectivity Plan was launched in October 2016. In a social media post, IndiGo said that this is a watershed moment for Indian aviation as 5 lakh customers travel by air every day in India .
“At IndiGo, it’s not just a number, it’s the 3.1 lakh smiles that fly with us every day,” the airline said.
“We have seen a huge surge in demand for domestic travel during the festive season,” said Gaurav Patwari, vice president (air category) at travel portal Cleartrip. He said the high passenger movement is mainly due to festive demand and the start of the wedding season. “We expect the strong demand to continue during the winter season as well.”
Occupancy on flights operated by major scheduled airlines on Sunday was more than 90 percent.
Also Read: Bad weather in Delhi has negative impact on air routes, 15 flights diverted
However, in recent times, the on-time performance (OTP) of airlines has been affected for various reasons. On Sunday, IndiGo’s OTP was 74.2 per cent, followed by Alliance Air’s 71 per cent and Akasa Air’s 67.6 per cent. Among other airlines, the OTP of SpiceJet and Air India was 66.1 per cent and 57.1 per cent respectively. In October, aviation regulator DGCA had said Indian airlines would operate 25,007 flights per week from 124 airports in the winter schedule starting October 27.
The number of flights is three percent more than the current summer schedule of 24,275 departures per week from 125 airports. The number of flights increased by 5.37 percent compared to the winter schedule of 2023. The winter schedule is from October 27, 2024 to March 29, 2025.
