Global airlines’ grouping the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its passenger traffic data has indicated that India’s domestic air traffic recorded negative growth rate for the first time in over five years during the month of April 2019, largely due to the demise of Jet Airways. It noted that after a sustained period of very strong growth, Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs) in the domestic India market are currently 0.5% lower than their year-ago level, down from a 15% year-on-year pace as recently as December. It added that India was one of the world's fastest growing domestic aviation market for the previous many months.
According to the data, Jet Airways, which was flying for more than 25 years, temporarily suspended all its domestic and international flights in April after it ran out of cash. It noted that flight cancellations and subsequent grounding of the airline adversely impacted seat capacity in the domestic market which also resulted in fares going up. It also highlighted that over the past five years, annual growth has averaged a pace close to 20%. It also pointed out that rising airfares in recent months are also likely to have weighed upon passenger demand.
IATA has stated that, globally, RPKs rose 4.3% in April 2019 as compared to same month in the previous year. It also experienced solid but not exceptional rising demand for air connectivity in April. This partly is owing to the timing of Easter, but also reflects the slowing global economy. It said ‘driven by tariffs and trade disputes, global trade is falling, and as a result, we are not seeing traffic growing at the same levels as a year ago.’ However, it noted that airlines are doing a very good job of managing aircraft utilisation, leading to record load factors.
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