'Travel is bouncing back like crazy!', says IPO-bound ixigo's CEO Aloke Bajpai

Online travel platform ixigo Co-founder and CEO Aloke Bajpai said on Monday that travel figures in the country are recovering at a significant pace from the second COVID-19 wave. "Travel is bouncing back like crazy!" Bajpai tweeted.

The CEO of IPO-bound ixigo also provided some figures to back his statement. He stated that reserved bookings on Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) have already come close to pre-COVID levels. He added that after 1.5 months, flights have again crossed 60% of the pre-COVID level and that 2.56 lakh passengers had travelled on flights yesterday.

"IRCTC reserved train bookings already very close to pre-COVID and now after ~1.5 months, flights have crossed the 60% of pre-COVID level again with 2.56 L passengers in the sky yesterday," he wrote.  

Earlier, credit rating agency ICRA stated that domestic air passenger traffic had continued on a growth trajectory in August with volumes growing up to 31 per cent to 66 lakh over the previous month. The agency explained that the growth was helped by higher capacity deployment and a downward trend in the pandemic.

Domestic passenger traffic on a year-on-year basis, however, spiked around 131 per cent over August 2020 traffic of 2.83 million passengers, ICRA noted.

"The air travel demand has continued to register improvement and the same grew by around 30-31 per cent at around 65-66 lakh in August, compared to around 50.1 lakh in July 2021, signifying a y-o-y growth of around 131 per cent," Kinjal Shah, Vice President and Co-group Head for Corporate at ICRA, had said.

Last month, Gurugram-based Le Travenues Technology Ltd, which operates travel booking app ixigo, had filed the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to raise Rs 1,600 crore through its initial public offering (IPO).

According to the initial prospectus submitted with the market regulator, ixigo's IPO would comprise a fresh issue of Rs 750 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) to the tune of Rs 850 crore by existing stakeholders.

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