India's air traffic growth slows down in 2019, was 1.6% in Sept: IATA

India's air traffic increased by just 1.6 per cent in September compared to 4.5 per cent in August this year, global airlines body IATA said on Thursday, adding that the pace of growth has "slowed significantly" throughout 2019 due to weaker economic activity and Jet Airways bankruptcy.

"Growth in domestic India RPKs (revenue passenger kilometres) eased to 1.6 per cent year-on-year, from 4.5 per cent observed in August," said a press release of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

In comparison, Chinese passenger traffic grew by 8.9 per cent and 9.8 per cent in September and August, respectively, as per the IATA.

RPK is a measure of actual passenger traffic that is calculated by multiplying the number of passengers to the number of kilometres they have travelled.

Aforesaid monthly passenger traffic figures are in comparison to traffic figures of the same month last year.

"Following a sustained period of double-digit year-on year growth between 2015 and 2018, the pace has slowed significantly throughout 2019 amidst weaker economic activity, subdued private consumption and Jet Airways bankruptcy which disrupted the market earlier this year," the IATA said while talking about Indian aviation market.

Jet Airways shut down its operations on April 17 this year due to lack of funds.

The IATA represents some 290 airlines comprising 82 per cent of the global air traffic.