International Air Transport Association (IATA) in its latest data has showed that India slipped to the fourth place in domestic air passenger traffic in August 2019 with passenger volume rising 3.7 percent in the month over the period year-ago, reflecting the deepening crisis in the economy spawned by slumping consumer demand. It noted that the country’s domestic air passenger market clocked an 8.9 percent growth in July 2019 when compared to the same month last year.
However, data showed that the average global demand for domestic travel climbed 4.7 percent in August 2019 compared to the same month last year, unchanged from the previous month. It also noted that the average capacity globally rose 4.6 percent and load factor increased 0.1 percentage point to 85.9 percent on the average across seven major international aviation markets.
Data further indicated that China witnessed the highest air travel demand at 10.1 percent in August followed by Russia, which logged 6 percent growth during the month. The domestic passenger volume for the US increased 3.9 percent in August over August 2018. IATA said ‘while we saw a pick-up in passenger demand in August compared to July, growth remains below the long-term trend and well-down on the roughly 8.5 percent annual growth seen over 2016 to Q1 2018 period.’