Domestic air passenger traffic in India increased by 8.6 per cent YoY (year on year) to 131.4 lakh in July, up from 121 lakh in the same month previous year, according to credit rating agency ICRA data released on Friday, August 9.

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Furthermore, domestic aviation traffic increased by 10 per cent over pre-Covid levels of 119.1 lakh in July 2019.

Meanwhile, in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, foreign passenger traffic for Indian airlines was 80.5 lakh, up 16.7 per cent YoY from 68.9 lakh (April-July period in FY24), and 48.7 per cent higher than pre-Covid levels of 54.1 lakh.

From April to July (four-month period), domestic air passenger traffic was 533.4 lakh, reflecting a YoY growth of 5.2 per cent against the same period last year (506.9 lakh), and 13.2 per cent higher than the pre-Covid level of 471.1 lakh in the same four month period in FY20.

The continued recovery in domestic and international air passenger traffic, with a relatively stable cost environment and expectations of the trend continuing in FY2025, ICRA said its outlook on the Indian aviation industry is stable.

“The momentum in air passenger traffic witnessed in FY2024 is expected to continue into FY2025, though further expansion in yields from the current levels may be limited,” the rating agency noted.

The capacity deployment for July was higher by 5.2 per cent over July 2023 (91,632 departures in July 2024 against 87,086 departures in July 2023). Further, the number of departures in July 2024 were higher by 0.2 per cent on a sequential basis.

The month of April recorded the highest single-day traffic of 470,751, surpassing the previous historic highs. For July 2024, the average daily departures were 2,956, higher than the average daily departures of 2,809 in July 2023, the report mentioned.

According to the report, the pace of recovery in industry earnings is likely to be gradual owing to the high fixed-cost nature of the business.

With agency inputs