Domestic air passenger traffic eases in June on YoY basis

On a sequential basis, passenger traffic declined from around 1.54 crore passengers in May 2026 to around 1.35 crore passengers in June 2026

India’s domestic air passenger traffic moderated in June 2026 on a year-on-year basis as airlines continued calibrated capacity deployment despite resilient travel demand. According to data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), scheduled domestic airlines carried around 1.35 crore passengers during June 2026, compared with around 1.36 crore passengers during the corresponding period of last year, registering a y-o-y decline of about 1.03 per cent. On a sequential basis, passenger traffic declined from around 1.54 crore passengers in May 2026 to around 1.35 crore passengers in June 2026, reflecting a month-on-month decline of about 12.6 per cent.Seasonal slowdownSpeaking to businessline, industry observers attributed the decline to the seasonal slowdown in travel as well as truncated capacity deployment by airlines during the month.Besides, the data showed that passenger load factors remained robust across most airlines during June, indicating healthy seat utilisation despite lower capacity deployment.Furthermore, Akasa Air recorded the highest passenger load factor during June 2026 at 92.2 per cent, followed by SpiceJet (87.8 per cent), the Air India Group (85.5 per cent) and IndiGo (85.1 per cent).In terms of market share, IndiGo further strengthened its dominant position among domestic carriers after carrying 89.20 lakh passengers, accounting for 66.3 per cent of the market.Similarly, the Air India Group — comprising Air India and Air India Express — accounted for a combined market share of 23.9 per cent after carrying 32.22 lakh passengers.Market share upMeanwhile, Akasa Air increased its market share to 6.4 per cent after carrying 8.61 lakh passengers.Other airlines such as SpiceJet accounted for a market share of 1.9 per cent, while Star Air, Fly91, Alliance Air and IndiaOne Air accounted for 0.7 per cent, 0.4 per cent, 0.4 per cent and less than 0.1 per cent respectively.Additionally, the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines during June 2026 stood at 0.63 per cent, with technical reasons accounting for the largest share of cancellations at 39.6 per cent, followed by operational reasons (36.3 per cent) and weather-related disruptions (20.3 per cent).In addition, the DGCA data also showed that airlines received 2,568 passenger complaints during June, translating into around 1.91 complaints per 10,000 passengers carried. Out of these, baggage-related issues accounted for the largest share of complaints at 27.8 per cent, followed by flight-related issues (24.3 per cent), refunds (19.7 per cent) and other reasons (18.3 per cent). All complaints received during the month were addressed by the airlines.Highest OTPIn terms of operational performance, IndiGo recorded the highest on-time performance (OTP) among major domestic airlines at the country’s 10 busiest airports during June at 89.4 per cent, followed by the Air India Group (85.9 per cent), Akasa Air (82.7 per cent), Alliance Air (74.7 per cent) and SpiceJet (33.5 per cent).Across airports, Chennai recorded the highest overall OTP during the month at 95.2 per cent, followed by Hyderabad (90.3 per cent) and Bengaluru (89.6 per cent).The DGCA attributed the majority of flight delays during June to reactionary reasons, which accounted for 69 per cent of all delays, followed by technical reasons (6 per cent), operational reasons (6 per cent), air traffic control constraints (5 per cent) and weather-related factors (4 per cent).Published on July 21, 2026