January air traffic growth slows down to 3.5% sequentially: Icra

DGCA yet to release traffic data; in December domestic airlines flew 7.3 mn passengers with month-on-month growth of 15%

Domestic air traffic growth slowed down to 3.5 per cent in January on a sequential basis, credit rating agency Icra said in its analysis today.

"The Indian aviation industry has witnessed a continued recovery in domestic passenger traffic in January. However the pace of growth slowed down in January 2021 with a sequential growth (over December  2020) of around 3.5 per cent to 7.6 million passengers," Icra said.

In December domestic airlines flew 7.3 million passengers resulting in a month of month growth of 15 per cent.

 

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is yet to release its traffic data for January. 

According to  Kinjal Shah, vice president, Icra: “The number of flights departing has also gradually increased from 416 on day 1 to 2,294 on day 240 (January 18, 2021). For January 2021, the average daily departures were  around 2,190, significantly lower than the average daily departures of 3,080 in January 2020, though better than  around 2,048 in December 2020. The average number of passengers per flight during January 2021 was 111, against an average of 134 passengers per flight in January 2020."

The civil aviation ministry has allowed airlines to deploy around 80 per cent of capacity from December. Yet airlines are operating only around 70 per cent of capacity till now.