Airlines in India, for the first time since the onset of COVID-19, have crossed the 400,000 passengers a day on Sunday. The airlines carried 407,975 passengers on 2,838 flights which amounts to about 95.5% of pre-COVID daily domestic air passenger traffic.
A week ago, we reported that India’s domestic air passenger traffic was estimated to have grown by around 59 percent year-on-year to 84 million in FY22. It also expects elevated Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) prices, aggravated by geopolitical issues, to remain a near-term challenge for the industry and will be a key determinant of profitability for the sector.
On a sequential basis, domestic passenger traffic spiked about 37 per cent to 10.6 million in March, driven by near normalcy in airline operations owing to the waning impact of the pandemic, Icra said. The passenger traffic on local air routes was 7.7 million in February 2022, it added. Traffic growth in March this year stood at 35 percent as compared to over 7.8 million in the year-ago month, it said.
Airlines’ capacity deployment for March 2022 registered a growth of 12 percent at 80,217 departures as compared to over 71,548 departures clocked in the same month of last year, ICRA said. Domestic departures logged 42 percent growth in March this year over the previous month, driven by the increased pace of vaccination and rapid abatement of the third wave of COVID-19, which allowed for the quick lifting of travel restrictions, the rating agency said.
For March this year, the average daily departures were at around 2,588, higher than the average daily departures of around 2,308 in March 2021, and notably higher compared to around 2,023 in February 2022, he said. The average number of passengers per flight during March this year was 132, against an average of 135 passengers per flight in February, Banerjee said.
According to Icra, one major positive development is the resumption of scheduled international operations from March 27 after a hiatus of almost two years. ATF prices have surged by around 93 percent year-on-year in April this year, given the elevated crude oil prices, and geopolitical issues arising from the Russian-Ukraine war, the rating agency said. The rising ATF prices continue to play a spoilsport for the industry and will pose a serious threat to the sector’s earnings in FY23, it said.
(WITH PTI INPUTS)
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