New Delhi, September 21:
The demand for air travel has picked up since the civil aviation ministry last week allowed airlines to operate up to 85% of their pre-Covid capacity domestically, according to airlines and industry experts. Airlines expect the air traffic to be back to pre-Covid levels by the end of this year as the fare cap has been being removed and travellers are starting to fly more.
“We expect domestic air travel to reach pre-pandemic level by December 2021,” said a spokesperson for IndiGo, India’s largest airline by market share.
Experts said with Canada and the US easing their travel restrictions for Indians, the international market is gradually opening up and that too will increase the passenger numbers. “We urge the government to allow more bubble flights with fewer travel restrictions to more and more countries. As an industry, our objective should be to be at full scheduled service by summer for all international destinations. It will require a lot of heavy lifting by the government to get us there,” the IndiGo spokesperson said.
Gaurav Bhatia, executive director, Bird Group, which owns Amadeus software for ticket reservation and distribution in India, said the increase in the capacity will enable airlines to operate more flights and push up passenger loads significantly. “In addition to providing more options on the existing routes, it will also open up more domestic routes. We forecast bookings to increase by over 25% by the end of September 2021. The trend will only be upward moving thereon. Bookings were already on the rise, as per our data, even before the new guidelines kicked in.”
Bhatia said changes in fare fixing mechanisms will bring much-needed cheer for the airlines. “Cheaper fares will be on offer for flyers; a move that will stimulate the market and strengthen revenue management cycles.”
IndiGo said it is pleased with the decision to allow airlines to operate with 85% capacity. “The demand has certainly picked up and we are expecting it to strengthen further in the upcoming festive season. We are bullish about the overall growth and demand for domestic travel and increasing the cap to 85% is a welcome move,” said the IndiGo spokesperson.
There has been an uptick in passenger growth in the last few months and business travel has also started to slowly grow, said rating agency CRISIL. According to CRISIL, air traffic in the domestic sector will not be back to pre- Covid levels before March 2022. “With private offices opening up, many of the employees are slowly returning to their base locations. While these are the positives, we are still at least two quarters away from getting back to pre- Covid levels in the domestic route,” said Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, director (transport and logistics), CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory.
