Air traffic starts growing again

New Delhi: Finally, there is a revival sign in the aviation sector. Domestic traffic has come out of the air pocket of declining passenger numbers. October saw a 25% increase with 39.7 lakh people taking to the skies against 31.8 lakh in the same month last year.
However, October 2009 number was even higher than October 2007 figure of 36.39 lakh, when the going was good. Also, January-October, 2009, has seen a 3.3% rise in traffic with 360 lakh fliers as opposed to 348.5 lakh during the same period last year.
The growth is reviving with improvement in business travel and alsonon-business travel due to restoration of salary cuts by most of the companies. The biggest gainers have been low-cost carriers as their planes are enjoying over 76% seat utilisation. For full service airlines, occupancy is ranging from 72% to 75%.
"Almost 70% of entire domestic air travel is on LCCs now. This figure will be 80% in next 12 to 18 months. We have witnessed a substantial increase in corporate travellers on our flights. the best news is that October '09 recorded higher number than October '07 when the slowdown in travel had not set in," SpiceJet chief Sanjay Aggarwal said.
"..Since last month, the yields for airlines have improved with fares going up. So one can expect airlines to cut losses in this fiscal though most of them will be in red," said analyst Kapil Kaul.
13/11/09 Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2009