Omicron notwithstanding, India’s commercial aviation continues to grow

Omicron notwithstanding, India’s commercial aviation continues to grow

India could look forward to a growth in domestic passenger traffic and reach near pre-Covid levels, despite the threat of the Omicron variant looming large

PRAVASISAMWAD.COM

Over the last few months, domestic traffic has been growing at a steady pace. Passenger traffic, in fact, has seen month-on-month recovery with 10.5 million flying in November 2021 as compared to 12.3 mn passenger carried in February 2020 (pre-Covid).

During January-November 2021, Indian airlines carried 72.4 million passengers, a growth of 30 per cent YoY. However, domestic passenger traffic at 104-105 lakh in November 2021, was lower by around 19 per cent compared to the pre-Covid levels.

Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, Director and Practice Leader, Transport and Logistics, Crisil Infrastructure Advisory was quoted by IANS news services saying that “2022 as a whole, we should see healthy demand panning out both in the domestic and international market starting from second quarter of the calendar year…Impact of Omicron will be felt more in the international traffic and substantially lesser in the domestic circuit. Having said that these are still early days, if the number of cases increases substantially then there could be an impact on non-essential travel even in the domestic routes”, Padmanabhan said.

The single most important faction that will continue to challenge aviation is high fuel prices, since it comprises for over a third of the revenue

Rabin Bihani, Senior Analyst, India Ratings and Research was equally optimistic. He was quoted saying: “We estimate FY22 traffic should be better than FY16 levels of around 85 million. We believe the growth momentum is likely to continue with higher number of offices opening up and employees returning to office; expectations of gradual increase in the business travel. Besides pick-up in in the leisure travels is also likely to ensure healthy demand going forward.”

He also pointed out: “Unless there is spike in Omicron or third wave, we believe, demand momentum shall continue to remain healthy. Government has also allowed airlines to operate at 100 per cent capacity now.”

The single most important faction that will continue to challenge aviation is high fuel prices, since it comprises for over a third of the revenue. In 2021, ATF prices saw a huge increase. During AprilNovember 2021, average ATF prices have increased by about 80 per cent on a YoY basis.

************************************************************************

Readers

These are extraordinary times. All of us have to rely on high-impact, trustworthy journalism. And this is especially true of the Indian Diaspora. Members of the Indian community overseas cannot be fed with inaccurate news.

Pravasi Samwad is a venture that has no shareholders. It is the result of an impassioned initiative of a handful of Indian journalists spread around the world.  We have taken the small step forward with the pledge to provide news with accuracy, free from political and commercial influence. Our aim is to keep you, our readers, informed about developments at ‘home’ and across the world that affect you.

Please help us to keep our journalism independent and free.

In these difficult times, to run a news website requires finances. While every contribution, big or small, will makes a difference, we request our readers to put us in touch with advertisers worldwide. It will be a great help.

For more information: pravasisamwad00@gmail.com