Growth of India’s air passenger traffic slows in November

New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS) The growth of India's domestic air passenger traffic slowed in November but still managed to rise in double digits for the 51th consecutive month, a global airline association said on Wednesday.

"India posted its 51st consecutive month of double-digit domestic RPK (revenue passenger kilometres) growth in November (13.3 per cent). This was the slowest pace in 16 months, but the bigger picture is that the strong upward trend in traffic remains in place," the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in its air passenger market analysis for November 2018.

"As we have argued before, strong gains in the domestic India market are being supported by structural changes, including ongoing rises in living standards, as well as large increases in the number of airport connections within the country. The latter translates into time savings and has a similar stimulatory impact on demand as reductions in fares."

According to IATA, India's domestic air passenger volume, measured in RPK, was the second highest amongst major aviation markets like Australia, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia and the US.

India's domestic RPK in the month under review rose 13.3 per cent compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.

India's domestic passenger traffic growth was second only to that of Russia at 13.8 per cent, followed by China at 7.2 per cent in the third place.

In terms of capacity, India's domestic available seat kilometres (ASK) -- which measures available passenger capacity -- stood higher by 19.8 per cent in November, followed by that of Russia's 10.9 per cent and China's 10.2 per cent