Airlines bet big on South India to grow outbound traffic

Chennai/Bangalore: After tangible signs of economic recovery, airlines are again betting big on the south Indian destinations to profit from the increasing outbound traffic. With rising importance of South East Asian destinations for leisure travellers, the traffic is set to grow more in near future.
Further, as Indian trade engagement with Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) grow, business travellers will also flock to airlines to travel to these destinations.
The aviation industry in general had to go through difficult times during recession due to lesser corporate traffic last year. However, figures for January show passenger traffic going up by 22 per cent to 4.14 million passengers compared to 3.37 million passengers during the same month last year. Most airlines enjoy passenger load factors up to 80 per cent in case of low cost airlines. Full service carriers are witnessing a load factor up to 70 per cent.
Some of the airlines which had reduced their frequency during recession, are again resuming their flights to different south Indian destinations.
Dragonair, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, had reduced the frequency of its flights on the Bangalore - Hong Kong route to four from seven during recession. However, the airline resumed daily services recently in the wake of the increasing traffic.
“As we have witnessed an uptick in traffic in the last quarter of 2009 and first two months of 2010, we have decided to resume daily operation,” Tom Wright, General Manager of India, Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, said.
01/04/10 Debasis Mohapatra/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign Apr 2010, Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2010, New Apr 2010