New Delhi, Apr 21 (IANS): Lower base effect as well as easing Covid travel restrictions accelerated India's domestic air passenger traffic growth by over 36 per cent in March on a year-on-year basis.

Pent-up demand and accelerated economic recovery also pushed the air passenger numbers higher during the month under review.

According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the country's scheduled domestic flight operations ferried 1.06 crore passengers last month. In March 2021, the traffic numbers stood at 78.22 lakh.

On a sequential basis, the sector had ferried 76.96 lakh passengers in February this year.

"Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-March 2022 were 248 lakh as against 233.83 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year, thereby registering annual growth of 6.06 per cent and monthly growth of 36.74 per cent," the DGCA said in its March data report.

The report said that the overall cancellation rate of scheduled domestic airlines last month stood at 0.30 per cent.

In the month under review, a total of 458 passenger-related complaints were received by the scheduled domestic airlines.

"The number of complaints per 10,000 passengers carried for the month of March has been around 0.43," the DGCA said.