Bookings cheer aviation industry

Mumbai: Diwali seems to have brought the much-needed cheer to the aviation industry, which was worrying about dwindling passenger loads. Travel industry experts say bookings for the festive season have shown an upswing compared to last year. With Christmas and winter holidays lined ahead, industry observers hope the aviation sector is on the road to recovery.
"Bookings this Diwali have been much better than expected. We were expecting a lukewarm festive season, but bookings have been 10-15% higher than last October,'' said Ajay Prakash, general secretary, Travel Agents Federation of India. "Queries for December have already started pouring in, indicating that the sentiment among flyers may not dwindle,'' he added.
Industry analysts said long weekends one after the other in the past two months also helped boost sentiments, with people planning quick getaways. "The weekend preceding Independence day was a long one. Then came the Dussera holidays. These set the tone for Diwali,'' said a Fort-based travel agent. In fact, August-September are usually considered dead months travel-wise, but this year they saw considerable bookings thanks to early festivals and many holidays. "What's more, passenger traffic picked up despite the swine flu scare andattacks on Indians in Australia,'' he added.
The cheap fares advertised by most airlines two months prior to the festive season contributed most to the upswing, experts say.
17/10/09 Chinmayi Shalya/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Oct 2009