Air passenger traffic improves after a decline in January
Premium- The average number of daily flyers rose to 196,000 during the week ended 5 February from 171,000 in the week ago period
New Delhi: Average daily domestic air passenger traffic recovered in the week ended 5 February when compared to the previous seven-day period amid declining covid cases.
The average number of daily flyers rose to 196,000 during the above-mentioned period from 171,000 in the week-ago period, brokerage firm ICICI Securities said in a report on Monday.
The average air passenger traffic is seeing a rise since January-end, after recording steep decline for several weeks.
The number of flyers per departure rose to 118 from 105 during the same period.
Similarly, the average number of daily departures rose to 1,663 from 1,624 in the previous week, as airlines increased capacity amidst rising passenger traffic.
In comparison, the total number of departing domestic passengers stood at 261,328 while the total number of domestic flight arrivals stood at 1,891 on 6 February, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA).
Domestic air passenger traffic has seen significant growth since last June, with the easing of lockdown restrictions following a steady decline in fresh covid-19 cases, giving more people the confidence to undertake travel.
However, the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus mutant and a subsequent third wave of pandemic in the country and in different parts of the world threatens to derail this recovery.
The decline in demand has seen airlines cut capacity, with domestic market leaders IndiGo trimming their flights by 20% during January.
The third wave of the covid-19 pandemic could lead to fresh turbulence for air traffic, delaying the domestic aviation industry's recovery to FY24 from FY23, Crisil Ratings Limited said in a recent report.
"This spill-over impact is likely to delay recovery of air traffic from our earlier expectation of it happening in fiscal 2023. However, recovery is expected to be achieved within the early part of fiscal 2024," the report said.
"This is because air traffic is likely to rebound faster this time around, compared with the second wave, when it took from May to November 2021 to recover from about 16% to 85% of the fiscal 2020 traffic," it added.
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