India’s domestic air passenger traffic rose 7.9 per cent in June over the year ago period even as the average demand for domestic travel across seven major aviation markets declined in the reporting month to 4.4 per cent from 4.7 per cent earlier, IATA said on Thursday.
The overall global passenger traffic (domestic and international), however, rose by 5 per cent compared to June 2018, said the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The international passenger demand rose 5.4 per cent in June 2019 compared to the period year-ago, which was an improvement from 4.6 per cent annual growth recorded in May.
All regions recorded increase in growth, led by airlines in Africa with capacity increasing 3.4 per cent, and load factor increasing by 1.6 percentage points to 83.8 per cent, in the reporting month, it said.
“Indias domestic market continues to recover from the demise of Jet Airways, with demand rising 7.9 per cent in June compared to the year-ago period,” IATA said.
Once a premier carrier, the now-defunct Jet Airways ceased operations on April 17 due to severe liquidity crunch and is currently under insolvency proceedings at the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
The grounding of Jet Airways created a mismatch between the demand and capacity, forcing the government to step in and allow other domestic carriers to operate the some of the airline’s domestic international slots at various airports.
Demand for domestic travel climbed 4.4 per cent in June compared to June 2018, which was a slight slowdown from 4.7 per cent annual growth recorded in May, IATA said.
Led by Russia, all of the key domestic markets tracked by IATA reported traffic increases except for Brazil and Australia, it added.
“June continued the trend of solid passenger demand growth while the record load factor shows that airlines are maximising efficiency.