Arriving late for a flight is never an option: 45 minutes before take-off, or you miss your flight. But how often are flights on time? Data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation shows that during January-November 2019, no airline has been on time more than 70% of the time.
As per the data, Go Air has the best On-Time Performance (OTP) of 67.6%. This was followed by Vistara (67.4%), Air Asia (66.7%), IndiGo (66.2%), SpiceJet (56.2%). Air India’s domestic flights saw the worst OTP with only 42% of its flights being on time.
In terms of reasons for delays, the most common reason was ‘reactionary’, which means delayed arrival of the aircraft led to delayed take-off. Other reasons included delays due to ATC, operational delays, technology, airports, among others.
This year, Air Deccan cancelled most flights, followed by Zoom Air, TruJet, Air India, Go Air, SpiceJet, IndiGo, Vistara and Air Asia.
Weather was the reason for most flights being cancelled, while 32.6% flights were cancelled due to technical reasons. Other reasons included commercial (3.9%) and operational (3.8%).
During November 2019, a total of 932 passenger related complaints were received by the scheduled domestic airlines. The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of Nov 2019 has been around 0.72.
Air Deccan received most complaints, followed by Air India, SpiceJet, Go Air, IndiGo and Air Asia. Among reasons for passenger complaints, a problem with the flight was the biggest reason for complaints (49.2%). Other reasons for complaints included baggage, customer service, staff behaviour and refund, among others.
Passengers carried by domestic airlines grew 3.86% annually to 1311.54 lakh passengers as against 1262.83 lakh. On a monthly basis, in November, domestic air passenger traffic grew by 11%. And this is the first time the industry registered a double digit growth.