Indian aviation is not growing at the breakneck speed it once grew a decade ago. Post COVID, while the Indian industry recovered faster than what IATA had predicted, it did not reach its record breaking growth spree due to a larger base this time around and also the supply chain issues leading to capacity constraints as aircraft deliveries were delayed.
Amidst this, the first quarter of the calendar year has been stellar in India. The quarter is likely to be the best ever quarter financially for airlines. A large part of this was driven by the once in a lifetime Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, which saw increase in traffic at not just Prayagraj but also to Varanasi, Lucknow and Ayodhya airports.
March is a transition month with the schedule moving from Northern Winter to Northern Summer, which has the highest ever approved flights in history. Data for April is awaited and may well be at the same or higher levels than March.
March – the record breaker
The month of March saw record breaking traffic and history being created. The Indian domestic industry crossed the 1,00,000 domestic flights in a month mark for the first time ever in history. The month saw 1,02,319 domestic flights being operated by airlines in India, averaging 3,300 per day. This is a monumental milestone, though only slightly higher than February on a per day basis.
IndiGo remained the largest carrier and flew 61,957 domestic flights in March, followed by Air India and Air India Express which flew 16855 and 11068 flights respectively. All Boeing operator Akasa Air flew 4135 flights while SpiceJet, which has shrunk the most post pandemic, flew 3804 domestic flights in March. IndiGo’s market share in March was 64%, while Air India and Air India Express together held 26.7%. The regulator DGCA does not declare the market share for the two airlines separately.
Where does India stand ?
India is the third largest domestic aviation market in the world behind the United States of America and China. As per data provided by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article, China’s domestic market is four times of India’s for the month of May, while the United States of America, the largest domestic market in the world, is seven times of India’s domestic market. Brazil comes in fourth, about 35% lower than India and is followed by Indonesia which is half of India’s domestic market.
Tail Note
As IndiGo and Air India placed record orders in 2023, the most asked question was how will the airlines fill as many planes and where will they fly them. Such questions have been asked in the past as well, while aviation in India continues to grow. With two strong airline groups, the future is bright even as many feel that duopoly will be bad for the consumer.
As is the case in any industry and the airline industry worldwide, there will be ups and downs which will happen in India as well. Over a longer period of time, the industry is set to fly high.
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