As traffic surges, carriers set to raise fares
29 Dec 2009
New Delhi: Indian domestic aviation has made a strong comeback with air carriers reporting their busiest quarter ever. With load factors on the rise across all sectors carriers are all set to raise fares in January.
Indicating a revival of sorts for the industry metro routes have experienced a huge surge in traffic, with leisure travel contributing its bit to the kitty of airlines. Passenger traffic for the October-December quarter is expected to outstrip levels recorded in 2007 for the same period.
This marks a big change for the industry which went into a slump soon with the economic downturn that began in early 2008.
According to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data, an estimated 40 lakh passengers travelled in November 2009, compared to 30.48 lakh for the same month last year. The story was the same for October this year, with 40 lakh passengers travelling on airlines as compared to 32 lakh passengers in the year ago period.
In all, passenger traffic for the October-November 2009 quarter surpassed 2007 levels for the same period, when a total of 75.2 lakh people travelled.
As for the nine month period, January-November 2009, a total of 400 lakh passengers travelled, which marked an increase of 5.45% over the same period in 2008.
