Ashish Ranjan
According to the most recent market analysis report by the International Air Transport Association (ATA), India is quickly emerging as a key global aviation market.
As of February, India’s domestic air travel was only 2.2% short of pre-pandemic levels, as measured by passenger revenue kilometers (PRK).
The India domestic passenger market also lead in the report’s passenger load factor (PLF) metric, which includes the domestic markets of the United States, China, and Japan. In terms of PLF, it has been the leading domestic market for the past four months, with PLFs of 81.6% in February, 85.2% in January, 88.9% in December 2022, and 87.9% in November 2022.
Global traffic is currently at 84,9% of February 2019 levels. Based on RPKs, total traffic in February 2023 increased 55.5% compared to February 2022.
The report continued, “Asia-Pacific airlines experienced a 378.7% increase in traffic in February 2023 compared to February 2022, maintaining the very positive trajectory of the past few months since the removal of travel restrictions in the region. The capacity increased by 176.4% and the load factor increased by 34.9 percentage points to 82.5%, the second highest load factor among regions.
Domestic air passenger traffic for all measured markets in February increased by 25.2% compared to the previous year. Total domestic traffic in February 2023 was 97.2% of February 2019 levels.
Currently, it is estimated that only 35 to 40 million Indians travel annually by aviation. Although data from the World Bank indicates that India had approximately 168 million air passengers prior to COVID, many of these passengers are repeat travelers. This is significantly less than China, which has 660 million air passengers during the same period in 2019 and a comparable population. Chinese airlines have approximately five times as many aircraft.
With a rapidly expanding middle class and rising incomes, as well as the proper incentives, such as lower airfares, many, including airline companies, anticipate India to be the fastest-growing aviation market for the foreseeable future.
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ch-aviation, a Swiss airline intelligence provider, reported in March of this year that French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said IndiGo Airlines could announce an order for “several hundred” Airbus aircraft at the June Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport.
