India’s air passenger traffic logs around 25% M-o-M growth in August: ICRA

08 Sep 2020 Evaluate

Rating agency ICRA in its latest report has said that India’s air passenger traffic logged around 25% month-on-month (M-o-M) growth at 26 lakh passengers in August with airlines scaling up capacity by 27% over July. However, it said passenger traffic on year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis plunged by 77% in August.

Overall, passenger traffic grew by 19% till August 31, with carriers flying over 70 lakh passengers during the period, after the resumption of services in a graded manner on domestic routes from May 25 following a two-month hiatus. It added that the capacity deployment at around 33% Y-o-Y was rather a slow uptick despite recommencement of operations over three months ago.

As per the report, the average number of passengers per flight during August was 98 against the average of 133 passengers per flight in August last year, and added that it is expected that the domestic aviation industry operated at a passenger load factor (PLF) of around 63% in the previous month as against 85.1% in August 2019, that too on very low capacity.

The agency said the PLF for August 2020 has sequentially improved from around 55%% in July this year despite the increase in capacity deployment by around 19%. While the scheduled international operations are yet to start, the Civil Aviation Ministry has permitted international operations under the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) and Air Transport Bubbles (ATB).

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