Domestic air passenger traffic witnessed a sharp decline in August as the total passengers carried by scheduled airlines was 43.7 lakh against 45.4 lakh in July.
This is the third straight month that air traffic has declined compared to the same period last year. Domestic traffic fell by 9.9% in July against the same month last year.

The total number of passengers in the first eight months, however, increased by 0.5% as compared to the year-ago period. "The number of passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-August period was 398.2 lakh as against 396.3 lakh during the same period last year," the aviation ministry said.

Low-cost carrier IndiGo continued with its dominance of the domestic market with a market share of 27.6% in August. It was followed by Jet Airways (25.2%), SpiceJet (18.5%), AI (18.2%), GoAir (7.4%) and KFA (3.2%).

Aviation minister Ajit Singh has directed AI to submit in a week's time a plan to enhance its domestic marketshare.