Spicejet continued to be the least punctual airline among all the scheduled domestic airlines at the six metro airports in January 2025. While Spicejet’s on-time performance (OTP) was 54.8%, Alliance Air recorded the worst ever OTP of 31.8% at Mumbai Airport among all airlines’ performance at all airports.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) released its air traffic data for the month of January 2025 on Thursday. The data revealed the on-time performance (OTP) of all the airlines for six metro airports including Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. While Spicejet was the least punctual airline with an OTP of 54.8%, Alliance Air performed 57.6%, Air India Group recorded 69.8%, Akasa Air recorded 71.5% and Indigo stood out at the top with 75.5%.

Although Spicejet reported a profit of Rs26 Crore in the third quarter of the financial year 2024-25, it has consistently been one of the least punctual airlines in the country for the last few months. In December, The Free Press Journal had reported that Spicejet was the least punctual airline at Mumbai Airport in November 2024, whereas it had the second-worst OTP at Mumbai as well as all the six metro airports in December 2024.

Focusing on the Mumbai Airport, Alliance Air was the least punctual airline with the OTP of 31.8%. Air India Group was the most punctual with a performance of 71%. Indigo ranked the second at 69.9%, followed by Akasa Air at 64.2% and Spicejet at 52.6%. The Free Press Journal had reported multiple instances of travellers getting stranded at Mumbai Airport due to cancellations and delays by Alliance Air.

DGCA also analysed the reasons for delay and found that the airlines attributed majority of the delays to ‘reactionary’. While 64% delays were caused due to reactionary measures, 10% were attributed to Air Traffic Control, 9% to weather and 5% to operations. Other issues included technical, airport management, ramp and miscellaneous reasons.

DGCA also highlighted that domestic airlines recorded monthly passenger growth of 11.28%. According to the data, 1.46 crore passengers were carried in January, compared to 1.31 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

In the first month of 2025, Indigo occupied the domestic market by carrying 9.52 crore passengers comprising of 65.2% of market share. The Air India group followed the trail with a vast difference as its market share remained 25.7%. Akasa Air carried 4.7% of the total flyers, whereas Spicejet captured 3.2% of the market, followed by Alliance Air, Star Air and Fly91 with less than 1% share each.