Mumbai: Domestic air passenger traffic fell around 43 percent monthly month to 64 lakh in January 2022 as the third wave of pandemics and restrictions produced by the state government away from air travel, said ICRA on Tuesday.
Domestic passenger volume on December 202 was recorded at 112 lakh.
The rating agency said expecting a recovery process to remain calm during the March quarter and that the price of jet fuel continued to be an obstacle to this sector.
Passenger traffic declined 17 percent last month more than 77 passengers lakh transported by domestic airlines on local routes in January 2021, ICRA said.
Also, the airline uses 7 percent lower capacity in January 2022, which sees 62,979 departures against 67,877 departures recorded in the same month in 2021, he said, noting that in sequence, the number of departures in January was lower than January 27 percent.
For the emergence of the new Covid-19 variant.
Sequential recovery slumped in January 2022 with the emergence of a new variant (Omicron) and related restrictions that had an impact on the recreational travel segment along with a calm request from the corporate tourist segment, said Suprio Banerjee, said the vice president & sector.
The same thing was reflected as passenger traffic during the April-January 2021-22 period remained around 45 percent lower than the previous year period, he said.
“The emergence of new Covid variants and reactionary air travel restrictions will make a quiet recovery prospect for the domestic airline sector in the current quarter,” he added.
One of the main concerns that continued to be an obstacle in the flight sector was the price of flight turbine (ATF), which had experienced a sharp increase of 59.9 percent in the year to 2022 February, mainly due to increased crude oil prices, said ICRA.
This, coupled with the relatively low use of aircraft fleet capacity, will continue to burden the financial performance of domestic operators in this fiscal year.
Furthermore, the credit profile of most Indian operators continues to be marked by weak liquidity positions, the rating agency states.