Asia-Pacific air passenger demand at 17%, India at 70% of pre-covid levels

Based on IATA data, India’s domestic passenger load factor in March 2022 was a healthy 82.3 percent which compares favourably with other markets

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) believes that lingering travel restrictions and border measures are holding back the recovery of the Asia Pacific travel and tourism industry.

It also said that the Asia-Pacific region’s international passenger demand for March reached 17 percent of pre-COVID levels, after hovering at below 10 percent for most of the last two years.

Based on IATA data, India’s domestic passenger load factor in March 2022 was a healthy 82.3 percent which compares favourably with other markets. Corresponding figures for March domestic passenger load factor in the U.S. was 87.2 percent and the average for the rest of the world’s domestic markets measured by IATA was 79.2 percent.

India’s domestic air traffic based on passengers carried for the first three months of this year is at about 70 percent of that in 2019, the last full pre-COVID year. Based on data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the total number of passengers carried between January to March of 2022 was 24.8 million. For the same period in 2019, this number was 35.45 million.

India is expecting to reach and then exceed pre-COVID domestic passenger traffic in the months to come.

“I am very confident in the days to come, in the months to come, within the next year, we will surpass the pre-Covid level of 415,000 daily passengers”, said Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia at an air show in Hyderabad in March.