Domestic air passenger traffic rises over 17% in December: IATA

India's domestic passenger traffic grew by 17.4 per cent in December 2017, a global airline association said on Friday.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), India's domestic demand -- revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) -- was highest amongst major aviation markets like Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

As per the data India's domestic RPK -- which measures actual passenger traffic -- rose by over 17.4 per cent in December compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.

"All markets showed annual growth led by India, China, and Russia, albeit with wide variation," IATA said in its global passenger traffic results.

India's domestic passenger traffic growth was followed by that of China at 13.5 per cent and Russian Federation at 8.6 per cent.

In terms of capacity, India's domestic available seat kilometres (ASK) -- which measures available passenger capacity -- climbed higher by 16.4 per cent in December, after China's 11.8 per cent growth.

The data disclosed that the international passenger demand for December edged higher by 6.2 per cent compared with the year-ago period.

"While the rate of demand growth slowed to 6.2 per cent in December 2017, compared to December 2016, this largely was owing to less favorable comparisons to the even stronger growth trend seen in the year-ago period," IATA said.

--IANS

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