As per the data released by International Air Transport Association (IATA), Indian domestic aviation sector witnessed 17.9% jump in traffic in March as compared to previous period last year. IATA further stated that domestic air travel rose by 8% in March year-on-year. Only China's domestic travel sector growth, measuring 22%, stood ahead of India and was highest growth in domestic traffic worldwide, boosted by residual effects on leisure travel from the Chinese New Year in February.
March international passenger traffic rose seven per cent compared to the year-ago period while capacity surged by 5.4 per cent with seat occupancy in the passenger planes increasing 1.2 percentage points to 78.9 per cent. In February Indian domestic aviation had grown 14.8%, ahead of every other country in the world, with Brazil coming at a distant second with 9.2% growth, followed by China's 8.4% growth.
IATA, which is a trade association for the world’s airlines, representing some 250 airlines or 84% of total air traffic, has though said that March traffic continues the trend of healthy demand for travel, but demand for air travel may weaken in the second quarter, as trade in Asia slows and European economies stutter. IATA is due to provide an update on the outlook for airline profits in 2015 at its annual meeting in June.
The Indian Civil aviation ministry projects that by 2020, India's airports would be handling 336 million domestic and 85 million international passengers, with projected investment to the tune of $120 billion. An estimate done by Civil aviation ministry in 2013 claims that India will become the third largest aviation market by the year 2020, and the largest by 2030. At present, the country is the ninth largest market in the world.