Continuing the recovery, domestic air passenger traffic crossed the 10 million mark in November for the first time since the pandemic hit the aviation industry in March 2020, according to ratings agency ICRA, but the new Omicron variant has the potential to be disrupted .
After registering 1.23 crore domestic passengers in February 2020, domestic air travel demand declined to 19.84 lakh passengers in the first month (June 2020) of resumption of flight services on local routes.
The improvement in domestic traffic continued till March this year when the second wave hit the country, resulting in domestic travel demand reaching 21.15 lakh passengers in May 2021.
In the second phase of recovery, domestic travel demand increased to 10.04-10.05 million (1.004 crore-1.005 crore) in November as compared to 63.54 lakh passengers in the year-ago period, a strong growth of 64%, ICRA said. said in the statement.
However, month-on-month growth stood at 15-16% in November as against 8.98 million passengers in October, ICRA said.
ICRA Vice President and Sector Head said, “While the recovery continued in November, demand from the corporate traveler segment continues to decelerate, as passenger traffic in November is about 19% lower than pre-COVID-19 levels ” Supriyo Banerjee. “The new version… has the potential to derail domestic reform as well, if it becomes the source of a new round of sanctions,” he said.
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