During August 2016, the air passenger traffic in the country stood at 21.4 million, exhibiting a substantial growth of 20 per cent over August 2015. In 5m FY2017, the passenger traffic has reported a y-o-y growth of 19 per cent, aircraft traffic has grown by 15 per cent and cargo traffic has grown by seven per cent.
Harsh Jagnani, Vice President, ICRA Limited said, “August 2016 reported slight decline (1.1 per cent) in total passenger traffic on m-o-m basis; however, on y-o-y basis there had been a growth of 20 per cent 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 per cent), which constitute over 77 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent and 15 per cent y-o-y increase respectively in August 2016, significantly higher than the eight per cent 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 per cent) and non-metro cities (y-o-y growth of 19 per cent).
