New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS): Domestic air traffic in August recorded a strong growth as nearly 1.01 crore passengers travelled during the month in the country as against 67.01 lakh in the same period last year, said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday.

As per the latest data released by the aviation regulator, domestic airlines during the first eight months this year carried 770.70 lakh passengers as against 460.45 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering an annual growth of 67.38 per cent and monthly growth of 50.96 per cent.

The passenger load factor or occupancy of the airlines remained on the higher side in the range of 70 to 80 per cent. Newly launched Akasa Air marked the occupancy of 52.9 per cent during August.

SpiceJet recorded the highest occupancy of 84.6 per cent while Indigo witnessed 78.3 per cent of passenger load factor. Air India had 73.6 per cent and GoFirst had 81.6 per cent of occupancy during the month.

Industry sources said that the downward trend in the Covid cases in the last couple of weeks have resulted in the restoration of normalcy in the aviation traffic.

Recently, the aviation regulator announced the removal of lower and upper limits on airfares in the country. It was done after discussions on removing the fare bands for domestic airfares among the stakeholders, including the government authorities and airlines. Carriers were of the view that the removal of the pricing caps was required for the full-fledged recovery of domestic air traffic.