By Rohit Vaid
India’s air passenger traffic is expected to clock double-digit growth in fiscal 2024 on the back of a pick-up in international and business travel along with capacity expansion by airport operators and higher availability of aircraft, a study conducted by Crisil Ratings said on Tuesday.
The study based on the top four airports, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which accounted for nearly 80% of air passenger traffic handled by private airports in India in fiscal 2022, cited that following traffic volumes, cash flows of airport operators are rebounding, leading to a recovery in their debt service cushions.
“Air traffic volume at Indian airports is expected to grow over 70% and touch 325 million for full fiscal 2023,” said Ankit Hakhu, director, Crisil Ratings.
“While this may still be a tad lower than the pre-pandemic levels, we expect the rising trajectory to continue. Air traffic volume is expected to rise further to over 380 million in fiscal 2024, which translates to a healthy growth of 17% over fiscal 2023 levels,” he said.
According to the study, the growth would come on the back of a likely pick up in international travel with the removal of all pandemic-related restrictions and the opening up of economies worldwide.
Additionally, business travel is also seen rebounding strongly with employees returning to offices and corporates returning to business-as-usual mode, the study said.
“Higher availability of aircraft and slots at airports will aid the growth, too. These issues had held back volumes during the current fiscal to some extent. Aircraft of select airlines had been grounded for some time during the year, for safety and inspection purposes, and have now come back in operations,” the study said.
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“Ongoing capacity expansions at leading airports will bring in new slots by providing infrastructure such as runways and additional terminal buildings.”
Consequently, aeronautical revenues comprising charges from passengers and aircrafts flying in and out of the airport and airlines parking at the airport among others will see sharp growth.