Average daily departures during February stood at about 2,023, marginally lower than 2,032 recorded the previous month, and significantly lower compared to 2,790 daily departures reported in December 2021, Icra said.
The sequential recovery improved in February 2022 with the waning Omicron wave and the resultant picking up of demand in passenger travel
New Delhi, NFAPost: Domestic air passenger traffic rose 19% month-on-month in February amid a fall in daily fresh coronavirus cases, credit rating agency Icra said on Tuesday.
However, domestic air passenger numbers last month at about 76 lakh remained 2% lower than the traffic recorded during the year-ago period.
Average daily departures during February stood at about 2,023, marginally lower than 2,032 recorded the previous month, and significantly lower compared to 2,790 daily departures reported in December 2021, Icra said.
The average number of passengers per flight during February stood at 135 against 102 in the previous month, it added.
“The sequential recovery improved in February 2022 with the waning Omicron wave and the resultant picking up of demand in passenger travel,” said Suprio Banerjee, vice president & sector head at ICRA
“However, due to the impact of multiple Covid waves in the current fiscal the passenger traffic for 11M (11 months) FY2022 remained about 44% lower than 11M FY2020 (pre-Covid level). The same is further threatened by the sharp rise in ATF prices amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” he said.
Daily domestic air passenger traffic, which has seen a steady uptick since last June, started dipping in December due to a rise in fresh surge in covid-19 cases. Infections started falling in January, providing a boost for the aviation sector.
“One major concern that continues to be a drag on the aviation sector is the aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, which have seen a sharp increase of about 57% on a Y-o-Y basis till March 2022,” the Icra report said.
