India's air passenger traffic records 3-5% negative growth in FY20: Icra

Indian aviation had a negative growth of 3-5 per cent in the last fiscal—hurting before the coronavirus pandemic and now hurting because of the disease, said rating agency Icra on Thursday.

The Icra report pointed that traffic slowed even before the coronavirus outbreak due to multiple reasons, including closure of debt laden Jet Airways. 

The agency, on Thursday said the de-growth was largely driven by higher airfares in the wake of large scale flight cancellations following shutting down of Jet Airways and overall sluggishness in demand. "Overall, except for the closure of airport operations, excluding cargo, the passenger traffic witnessed the de-growth in the range of 3-5 per cent for FY2020," Icra said during a media webinar.

Jet Airways stopped operations in April last year. A gradual recovery in domestic traffic is expected once the commercial air services are restored while the international traffic would take a couple of quarters to come back to the normal level, the agency said.  Commercial flight services have been suspended till April 14 amid the 21-day nationwide lockdown to prevent spreading of coronavirus infections.

 The growth in passenger traffic as well as aircaft movement slowed down considerably during nine months of FY 2020 even before the coronavirus pandemic, it added.  Noting that the growth in air traffic largely depends on economic cycle in the country, Icra said over the last decade, aircraft traffic movement grew at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 7.2 per cent between FY 2009 and FY 2019. However, there was a decline in FY09 and FY13.

Meanwhile, with flights grounded since mid-March, ATF consumption fell 32.4 per cent to 4,84,000 tonnes.