Airlines witness dip in use of freight-carrying capacity in January

Passenger load factor also sees decline after year-end jump

Airlines used less of their freight-carrying capacity in January compared to December.

The weight load factor for domestic airlines dipped to 73.9 per cent in January from 74.6 per cent in December. It dropped to 72.5 per cent for international airlines compared to 78.2 per cent in the previous month. The weight load factor measures the extent to which airlines utilise their ability to carry freight.

Airlines had seen a decline in utilisation levels during the pandemic. The latest numbers were higher than the pre-pandemic January 2019 for both domestic and international services (Chart 1).

Using planes to carry cargo had been in focus during 2023. E-commerce giant Amazon announced a dedicated air cargo fleet called Amazon Air from Hyderabad in January. Air India announced that it would seek to increase its annual cargo capacity by 300 per cent in July. The airline planned to use additional belly capacity with the addition of new planes. Such belly cargo accounted for over 80 per cent of air freight in 2022-23 according to the Handbook on Civil Aviation Statistics.

Passenger traffic has been rising with the holiday season. The domestic passenger load factor dipped to 89.2 per cent in January compared to 90.7 per cent in December. The passenger load factor is a measure of capacity utilisation when it comes to transport services like airlines. Traffic tends to increase during the year-end. The international passenger load factor was down to 86.9 per cent in January from 87.3 per cent in December (Chart 2).

The total number of passengers had hit a high of 13.8 million in December. This has since declined to 13.1 million. International passenger traffic declined to 2.7 million from 2.8 million in December. As in the case of freight, airlines continue to carry more passengers than they did in the corresponding month for 2019 (Chart 3).