Revival of air traffic soon

Speaking at a webinar organized by industry body Ficci on Thursday, Civil Aviation Secretary, Pradeep Singh Kharola, stated that India’s domestic civil aviation sector is expected to return to normalcy in the next two to three months. He added that the sector remained resilient during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data points out that albeit the domestic air passenger traffic in November was 51% lower compared to November 2019, it grew 20% month on month.

Credit rating agency ICRA too said in a recent report India’s air passenger traffic is expected to rebound. However, it expects this resurgence to happen in 2022 and it will widely lag the levels seen in FY16. But it also anticipates the recovery of domestic traffic to be earlier than that of international traffic. “If a vaccine is launched earlier with reasonable availability, domestic air passenger traffic could witness a further upside in FY22, with an estimated growth of about 93%, and international air passenger traffic could witness an estimated growth of about 235%,” it said.