The reopening of commercial passenger flight services in a phased manner is not expected to help in recovery of domestic aviation industry in FY21, a report said. The domestic air traffic may shrink by 41-46 per cent and international travel demand by a negative 67-72 per cent year-on-year owing to the coronavirus pandemic, rating agency ICRA said on Friday.
The domestic passenger flight services restarted from May 25 after a gap of two months owing to the coronavirus lockdown. The international operations, however, remained suspended since March 22 for similar reasons.
"As per our study, though restricted recommencement of domestic air traffic
has begun, this will in no case help the industry to recover the lost ground in FY2021. However, H2 FY2021 will witness some recovery, with Q4 FY2021 witnessing a degrowth of just 3-14 per cent y-o-y in domestic with improved passenger load factors (PLFs)," ICRA also said in the report.
"Overall FY2021 is expected to witness around 41-46 per cent de-growth in domestic passenger traffic while the international passenger volume are likely to witness a significant de-growth of about 67-72 per cent y-o-y," it noted.
The international traffic may improve sequentially, with the March quarter of the fiscal likely to witness a de-growth of 30-40 per cent y-o-y, it added. The domestic passenger traffic has gradually increased from 30,550 on Day 1 (of recommencement) with a peak of 72,583 on Day 21. Since then, the same has remained above 58,000 (till Day 37, which was June 30, 2020).
For June, the domestic passenger traffic was 1.95 million, as against 11.2 million in June 2019, a de-growth of 83.7 per cent over the year-ago period. The average number of passengers per flight during June was 90, as against an average of 139 passengers per flight in June last year, ICRA said.
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