Credit rating agency Icra on Friday released a report saying that India’s domestic air passenger traffic may have experienced a yearly growth of around 13%, hitting approximately 15.4 crore, in 2023-24. The report added that the aviation industry’s net loss is anticipated to have decreased to Rs 3,000 to 4,000 crore during this period.
What more did ICRA’s report say?
Icra also highlighted that the airlines’ capacity to raise yields in line with rising input costs will play a crucial role in expanding their profit margins, despite facing supply chain challenges and engine failure issues in the near term. For the fiscal year 2023-24, it projected domestic air passenger traffic to be approximately 154 million, marking a Year-on-Year growth of approximately 13%.
“The domestic air passenger traffic in FY2024, thus, surpassed the pre-Covid levels of around 142 million in FY2020. For March 2024, domestic air passenger traffic was estimated at around 135.2 lakh, around 6.9 per cent higher than around 126.4 lakh in February 2024. Further, it grew by around 4.9 per cent on a YoY basis,” Icra said.
The report added that the industry is likely to witness a significantly lower net loss of Rs 30-40 billion in FY2024 and FY2025 over Rs 170-175 billion in FY2023.
In March, airlines’ capacity deployment surpassed the previous year’s figures by approximately 2%, and was approximately 9% higher compared to February.
For the 11-month period ending February 2024, international passenger traffic for Indian carriers reached around 270.1 lakh, marking a Year-on-Year growth of approximately 25%. This figure also exceeded pre-Covid levels (April–February 2020) by 24%, which stood at around 218.1 lakh.
(With PTI inputs)