Airline traffic growth to breach pre-Covid levels in 2 months: Jyotiraditya Scindia 

Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Monday said that he sees airline traffic in India recovering to pre-Covid levels over the next two months.
 
Referring to passenger traffic data released last week by the aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Scindia said though the fall was steep, the rise has been steep as well, with close to 3.5 lakh passengers taking to the skies daily during the period. 

After passenger traffic recovered up to 3.9 lakh passengers per day in November and December 2021 – as against the pre-Covid level of 4 lakh passengers per day – the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the number dropping by nearly 1 lakh per day.
 
“In physics terms, if you look at the amplitude of the curve, it has been very high. But then the wavelength has also been very narrow and, therefore, you have seen a bounce back. I am very confident that ceteris paribus – all things remaining equal – in next two months or so you should see us crossing pre-Covid levels in terms of the daily passenger traffic,” he asserted.
 
Scindia was speaking at the 66th foundation day of the statutory professional body All India Management Association (AIMA).
 
The minister’s guidance on growth for the world’s third-largest domestic airline market comes at a time when air traffic for the month of January fell by nearly 43 per cent to 64.08 lakh passengers as compared to 1.20 crore in December, DGCA data revealed. Consequently, the passenger load factors (PLF) for all Indian air carriers have also been hit.
 
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Scindia observed that despite the challenges posed by the three waves of the coronavirus pandemic in the last two years, the overall outlook for the sector remained buoyant.
 
“Civil aviation is to become the backbone of Indian transportation over the next five to ten years. Both because of its physical reach as well as cost-effective economic rates that are offered for fares. On both the precepts, I strongly believe that the civil aviation story in India is extremely strong,” he noted.
 
The minister said that the anticipated growth in air traffic would abet the creation of new demand and capacity at both airports and airlines.
 
“We have possibly two new airlines coming in to play. One is the rebirth of Jet Airways and, second, a new airline in the form of Akasa. And then the new management at Air India will be putting their best foot forward with a new value proposition,” observed Scindia.
 
The previous fiscal was particularly a challenging period for domestic airline companies. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the financial loss to Indian carriers was approximately Rs 19,000 crore, while in the case of Indian airports it was approximately Rs 3,400 crore. Domestic air passenger traffic declined by 0.3 per cent in 2019-20 and by 61.7 per cent in 2021 due to the pandemic.

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