Australia’s domestic flights were a little roomier for the travelling public in March, with the growth in passenger numbers failing to match the extra seats added into the market.

Figures from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE), showed the number of domestic passengers rose by 1.8 per cent to 4.8 million in March.

Meanwhile, capacity, as measured by available seat kilometres, grew by a larger 4.1 per cent.

With capacity increasing at a faster rate than passenger traffic, the industry-wide load factor decreased slightly to 76.4 per cent in March, compared with 77.3 per cent in March 2012, BITRE said.

“Load factors on individual routes decreased on 41 of the 56 RPT (regular public transport) routes for which data is available in both years,” said the BITRE report, released on Friday.

Load factors are a measure of how full flights are.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said in early May that although the recent surge of capacity was slowing, there were still too many domestic seats for the airline group to begin lifting yields, or average airfares per passenger.

Mr Joyce said he expected no improvement to yields before the end of 2012/13.

Virgin Australia too has recently spoken of tough times, warning that underlying profit before tax for 2012/13 would be lower compared with the prior year amid slower trading conditions and a weakening economic environment.

Australia’s number two carrier recently reduced its planned domestic capacity growth for the six months to June 30 to about four per cent, from five to seven per cent previously.

The nation’s domestic airlines lifted capacity by 10.8 per cent in the six months to December 2012 – the highest increase in eight years.

However, the traffic figures so far in 2013 from both Qantas and Virgin suggested the period of rapid capacity growth was coming to an end.