Global airlines’ body the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has indicated that India lost the top position to neighbouring China and become world's second fastest growing domestic aviation market in the month of July this year. According to the IATA, China tops the domestic chart for just the second time in 28 months, however the upward trend in India has picked up. It added that passenger demand remains on course to grow steadily this year as a whole.
IATA has noted that India registered a growth of 12.5% in July 2017, while China overtook India by registering 15% growth in the same period. The growth is measured in RPK (Revenue Passenger Kilometres) - an indicator of demand. It also highlighted that year-on-year growth in domestic India RPKs slowed to 12.5 percent in July - its slowest speed since November 2014. It also explained that a very strong month-on-month increase in seasonally-adjusted RPKs in July meant that yearly RPK growth managed to remain in double digits for the 35th consecutive month.
Global airlines’ body further mentioned that while the growth appears to have slowed in the opening months of 2017, the solid upward seasonally-adjusted traffic trend looks to have reasserted itself in recent months. As is the case in China, it pointed out that demand is still stimulated by sizeable increase in the number of domestic routes served. Globally, it stated that the easing in the seasonally-adjusted industry-wide RPK trend also reflects a reduced degree of stimulus to demand from lower airfares.