Vistara carried 1 million domestic passengers in July, surpassing 10% market share for the first time in a month, second only to industry leader IndiGo.

Meanwhile, domestic air passenger traffic fell 7.7% month-on-month in July, with Air India carrying 9.7 million passengers on local routes, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Domestic air passenger traffic was 10.5 million in June. While July’s passenger traffic was better than the 5 million in the same month last year, it was down from the 11.9 million recorded before the pandemic in July 2019.

According to ICRA, the sequential decline in traffic is partly due to the cyclical nature of passenger travel, mainly due to the low season during the monsoon and the impact of higher air travel fares on leisure travel.

IndiGo carried 5.7 million passengers in July, with a market share of 58.8%. However, the airline carried 5.9 million passengers last month for a market share of 56.9%.

Vistara’s passenger traffic grew from 900,000 in June to more than 1 million in July, while its market share jumped from 9.4% to 10.4%. This is the first time Vistara has taken the second position in market share in a month.

Air India handled 0.8 million passengers in July, up from 0.7 million in June, increasing its market share to 8.4% from 7.5%. Go First’s passenger traffic fell from 0.9 million in June to 0.7 million in July, and its market share fell from 9.5% to 8.2%.

SpiceJet‘s July passenger traffic slipped to 0.8 million from 1 million the previous month, while its market share slipped to 8% from 9.5%. In July, DGCA ordered the low-cost carrier to operate only 50% of approved flights for eight weeks under the summer program due to multiple technical glitches on the plane.

AirAsia’s July passenger traffic fell to 0.4 million from 0.6 million in June, with a corresponding drop in market share from 5.6% to 4.6%.

AirAsia once again achieved the best on-time performance (OTP) among domestic airlines with an on-time performance of 95.5% at four metro airports – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad – in July. It was followed by Vistara (89%), Go First (84.1%), Air India (83%), SpiceJet (82.1%) and IndiGo (80.8%). July was the fourth consecutive month that AirAsia ranked first in OTP, reaching 89.8% in June, 90.8% in May and 94.8% in April.