Indian airlines saw only a petite year-on-year growth of 1.10 per cent in domestic air traffic in February. According to newly released stats, the total number of domestic air passengers marginally jumped from 48.92 lakh in February 2013 to 49.46 lakh in February this year.

IndiGo topped the list with 14.64 lakh passenger, while Jet-JetLite and Air India followed with 11.92 lakh and 9.62 lakh passengers, respectively.

SpiceJet carried nearly 9 lakh passengers during the month under review, while GoAir carried 4.27 lakh passengers. New regional airline Air Costa carried just 16,000 passengers.

The passenger numbers are clearly not indicative of the impact of discounts that airlines announced earlier this year to attract more customers. It is because the discounts were offered from the final week of February onwards.

However, online travel portals reported a jump of more than 30 per cent in flight bookings since the announcement of discounts by various airlines like Air India, SpiceJet Ltd, Jet Airways and Indigo. Ezeego1. com COO Neelu Singh said, "We have seen an increase of over 30% on the total number of domestic bookings, as compared to a normal period. The metro routes have seen maximum traction."

GoAir enjoyed the highest passenger load factor of 77.3 per cent, while JetLite, IndiGo, Air India and Jet saw load factors of 76.4 per cent, 75.5 per cent and 75.1 per cent and 72.3 per cent, respectively. SpiceJet recorded a passenger load factor of 70.9, while Air Costa's load factor stood at 71.6 per cent.