The Indian aviation industry has witnessed a continued recovery in domestic passenger traffic in February 2021. However, the pace of growth slowed down for the second month in February 2021, with a sequential growth (over January 2021) of ~1% to ~78 lakh passengers.
The capacity deployment in February 2021 at ~71% (vis-a-vis February 2020) is a significant increase over the ~59% capacity deployed in November 2020 and ~67% in December 2020, very near the ~71% increase in January 2021. On a YoY basis, however, domestic passenger traffic declined by ~37%.
According to Kinjal Shah, Vice President, ICRA: “The number of flights departing has also gradually increased from 416 on Day 1 to 2,885 on Day 267 (February 14, 2021). For February 2021, the average daily departures were ~2,296, significantly lower than the average daily departures of 3,137 in February 2020, though better than ~2,190 in January 2021. The average number of passengers per flight during February 2021 was 121, against an average of 136 passengers per flight in February 2020. Thus, it is expected that the domestic aviation industry operated at a passenger load factor (PLF) of ~78% in February 2021, against 87.7% in February 2020, that too on a low capacity. The PLF for February 2021 was higher than the ~73% in January 2021, due to the decline in capacity deployment by ~5%. Overall, from May 25, 2020 till February 28, 2021, domestic passenger traffic has been pegged at ~45.6 million.”
While the scheduled international operations are yet to start, the MoCA has permitted international operations under the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) and Air Transport Bubbles (ATB). Under the VBM for evacuation of Indian citizens from foreign countries, which started from May 07, 2020, the international passenger traffic (inbound and outbound) for Indian carriers has been ~25 lakh for the period May 07, 2020 to February 28, 2021. For February 2021, international passenger traffic for Indian carriers under VBM was recorded at ~3.9 lakh, a sequential decline of ~5%.
