India's traffic grows 27%, six times higher than the second highest growing market: IATA

Growth in the India domestic market is being propelled by the comparatively strong economic backdrop as well as sizeable increase in services, IATA said

Domestic air traffic in India grew 27.4 per cent in March over six times higher than in the US, the second fastest growing market, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Globally domestic travel demand and capacity grew 3.7 per cent and 4.3 per cent in respectively in March on a year-on-year basis. India outperformed all other markets because of combination of increased capacity and low fares. Capacity addition in India at 21.7 per cent was also the highest in the world and seat occupancy of 83.1 per cent was second only to the United States.

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Growth in the India domestic market is being propelled by the comparatively strong economic backdrop as well as sizeable increase in services (average flight frequencies within India are scheduled to increase by 11.5 per cent year-on-year in 2016), IATA said in a statement.

Buoyed by strong passenger growth, domestic air carriers are set to add close to 50 planes to their fleets in 2016-17, from 34 additions a year before.

Market-leader IndiGo will induct 29 Airbus A320neo aircraft till next March, five planes more than previously announced target of 24. GoAir is expected to receive eight of these, its highest ever addition in a single year. AirAsia India, Vistara and SpiceJet are also inducting planes. Jet Airways says its focus remains on "higher fleet utilisation to increase capacity on domestic routes".