There were 456,082 passengers on domestic flights in India yesterday, setting a new daily record.

The record number of departures occurred on April 30 with 2,978 flights across the country. “The skyrocketing domestic passenger traffic post Covid is a reflection of India’s high growth,” tweeted India’s aviation minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia.

A surge in tourism has resulted from India’s resurgent economy following the devastating 2008 epidemic. Domestic airlines transported more than 37.5 million passengers in the first three months of 2023. According to the country’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, this represented a rise of 51.7% when compared to the previous year.

During the two years of Covid, development halted altogether. An aviation analyst, Mark Martin, recently commented to the BBC that the current demand surge is the result of pent-up demand that has been building for some time.

Mr. Martin claims that ever since the epidemic, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of people taking their first flight.

With rising disposable incomes, India has become Asia’s third largest economy, and air travel there has been expanding at double the rate of GDP.

Domestic traffic in India has been steadily increasing and is now only 2.2% lower than it was in February 2019 according to a data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). comparing domestic markets, including the United States, China, Japan, Australia, and Brazil, India’s passenger load factor of 81.6% was the highest.

However, there are still problems for the industry to solve, such as the rising cost of aviation turbine fuel, the falling value of the rupee relative to the dollar, and grounded aircraft.

For months, prominent Indian airlines like IndiGo and Go First have been unable to take off because of problems with Pratt & Whitney engines that have grounded over 50 planes.

“This is costing the airline industry billions of dollars every year. Mr. Martin remarked that the fleet would benefit from the addition of at least 150 additional aircraft.

The ratings firm ICRA estimates that India will get roughly 1,100 fleet deliveries in the next years. Air India, which is controlled by the Tata Group, made the biggest aircraft purchase in aviation history in February when it agreed to purchase 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing.

However, capacity addition is expected to occur gradually, according to ICRA, because of difficulties in the supply chain that are “likely to constrain the production schedules.”

SOURCE :-  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65334390