Airlines soar but engine woes stay

The Indian aviation industry staged a strong comeback with the passenger traffic exceeding the pre-covid levels in most of the months in 2023.

- Vineetha Sampath

Data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed that the number of passengers carried by domestic airlines from January to November rose over 5% compared with the pre-covid times (2019) primarily driven by the demand-supply dynamics.

December has also seen strong traffic to date with average daily passengers at 442,000, ICICI Securities noted.

"If we extrapolate the trends seen in December, total December traffic would be about 13 million," the brokerage said in a report on 17 December. This is in line with the level before the period. However, on a year-on-year basis, traffic in December indicated a mere 2% growth. In fact, November saw a single-digit drop (9%) after 20 months.

"Slower growth in passengers could be combination of high airfares, constrained capacity," said analysts at Jefferies India in a report on 15 December.