October emerges as best month for domestic air traffic since air travel resumption

The month of October was the bearer of good news for the Indian civil aviation market as domestic air traffic surged and reached record levels nearing pre-COVID demand sentiment.

A total of 87,83,361 domestic air passengers were registered at the departures during the month of October, as per government data. This is 24.3 percent higher than the domestic air traffic seen in the month of September at 70.66 lakh passengers. The October data beats the previous best figure of 78.27 lakh domestic passengers registered during the month of February 2021.

In fact, the month also witnessed record level of daily air passenger traffic on October 30th, falling on a Saturday ahead of the upcoming festival week, at 338,438 passengers or at 85 percent of pre-COVID level. This is the strongest demand seen post the resumption of air travel in May 2020 following a two-month shutdown due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Similarly, the flight departures also touched record figure of 2,639 flights on October 31st, thereby reaching 91 percent of pre-COVID level and all major scheduled airlines registered a load factor of more than 70 percent.

If we look at the average daily data of October, then the average daily domestic traffic was over 283,000 air passengers or at 71 percent of pre-COVID level and the average daily October domestic air departures were over 2300 flights or at 80 percent of pre-COVID level.

With no capacity restrictions and ongoing festival season, experts believe that the demand sentiment is expected to remain strong over the near term.