Air passenger traffic continues on a strong growth trajectory

During August 2016, the air passenger traffic in the country stood at 21.4 million, exhibiting a substantial growth of 20% over August 2015. In 5m FY2017, the passenger traffic has reported a y-o-y growth of 19%, aircraft traffic has grown by 15% and cargo traffic has grown by 7%.

 Mr. Harsh Jagnani, Vice President, ICRA Limited elaborates: “August 2016 reported slight decline (1.1%) in total passenger traffic on m-o-m basis; however, on y-o-y basis there had been a growth of 20% reflecting the continuing overall positive growth trajectory. The passenger traffic growth in August has been driven primarily by significant y-o-y increase in domestic passengers (23%), which constitute over 77% of the total passenger traffic in the country as of August 2016. The aircraft traffic has reported similar trends with a negligible m-o-m growth and y-o-y growth of 13% in August 2016”.

The domestic traffic (both passenger and aircraft) continues to dominate the total traffic with domestic passenger traffic and domestic aircraft traffic reporting a 23% and 15% y-o-y increase respectively in August 2016, significantly higher than the 8% growth reported in both international passenger and aircraft traffic. The passenger growth in the country has remained broad-based with 18 out of the top 20 airports exhibiting double-digit y-o-y growth rates. The growth remained robust across both metro cities (y-o-y growth of 20%) and non-metro cities (y-o-y growth of 19%).

 The air cargo traffic in the country increased to 244,235 MT in August 2016 from 226,000 MT in August 2015, recording a y-o-y growth of 8%, slightly higher than the 7% growth in July 2016. Mr. Jagnani explains: “air cargo traffic too has reported slight m-o-m decline in August 2016, however the y-o-y traffic growth continues to remain healthy.

Moreover, majority of the top 20 airports have reported positive growth with 17 airports reporting positive y-o-y growth and 11 airports reporting positive m-o-m growth in August 2016.” International cargo traffic, which constitutes over 60% of overall cargo traffic, reported slightly lower y-o-y growth of 8% as against 9% growth for domestic cargo.