Indian aviation market is faltering: IATA

While China's surge in passenger demand continued with an 11.4 per cent hike since last year, "Indian domestic traffic plummeted 9.9 per cent compared to a year ago, the worst performance for any market," International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in its global traffic results for September.

It said the decline in the Indian passenger traffic demand reflected "the slowing economy and capacity reductions that have suppressed domestic travel."

In India, September's domestic capacity fell 5.9 per cent, dropping the load factor 2.9 percentage points to 64.9 per cent, "the lowest of any market," the IATA analysis said.

"Asia-Pacific carriers outside of China are a mixed bag. Robust growth in China is being tempered by faltering markets in Japan and India," IATA Director General and CEO Tony Tyler said, adding that the airlines in China, Latin America and the Middle East were growing strongly.

 

While European carriers were experiencing "profitless growth in a strategy to manage high fixed costs and taxes," North American ones were focussing on "tightly managing capacity to optimize profits in a slow to no-growth environment."

Overall, there was a continued slowdown in the rate of traffic growth. September international passenger demand rose 4.9 per cent compared to the year-ago period, with all regions reporting traffic growth. Only Asia-Pacific carriers experienced a decline compared to August.

While passenger traffic demand was 4.1 per cent above the September 2011 level, air cargo demand growth was even weaker at 0.6 per cent, the IATA study said.