Indian aviation market grew by 27.4% in March: IATA

In an encouraging development for the ailing aviation industry in the country, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said that Indian aviation market grew by 27.4% in March making it the fastest-growing aviation market in the world. However, India accounted for only 1.2 per cent in the overall global domestic traffic.

IATA stated that India market remains the fastest-expanding market, with growth edging up to 27.4% year-on-year, in March. Growth in the Indian domestic market is being propelled by the comparatively strong economic backdrop as well as sizeable increases in services.

IATA, which is an association of 260 airlines comprising 83% of global air traffic, said that India’s growth rate was over six times more than that of the US, which clocked the second-highest growth rate of 4.1%, followed by the Russian Federation at 4.00 percent, China at 3.3 percent and Australia at 2.3 percent. India's domestic capacity in the month under review rose by 21.7 percent, while the demand for international traffic grew significantly more quickly than that for domestic travel.

The agency further said that India’s annual domestic Revenue Passenger Kilometer (RPK) growth rate has now been in double digits for nineteen consecutive months. The combination of such rapid growth in India and slower (even negative) growth in other similarly-sized domestic markets has seen India overtake the others in terms of seasonally adjusted domestic RPKs over the past year or so, most recently Brazil, which it surpassed in March.