India’s civil aviation is witnessing a revival, post the Omicron-wave, with 3.82 lakh passengers travelling daily over the last seven days, Union Civil Aviation Minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

He added that the Ministry was expecting total passenger traffic to rise to 40 crore by 2023-24.

The number of air passengers in the pre-Covid year (2018-19) stood at 14.50 crore and had dropped to 11 crore-odd in 2021 due to Covid-19.

Participating in the debate on Demands for Grants, 2022-23, for the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Scindia said: “We are confident of taking the air passenger traffic up to 40 crore; which is technically a three-fold-rise over the Covid years.”

The total number of air passengers increased from 6.70 crore in 2013-14 to 14.50 crore in 2018-19. The number of planes too increased from 400 from 2013-14 to 710 by 2018-19.

Scindia said the aviation sector started to look up post the second Covid wave and the number of air travellers in the country increased to 3.90 lakh per day in November 2021, compared to 4.15 lakh per day in pre-Covid times.

“The civil aviation sector was witnessing good growth pre-Covid with India being the third largest domestic market globally. The sector was witnessing recoveries post the second wave and by November 2021 around 390,000 people was flying daily, just about 5 per down from the pre-Covid peak of 415,000 passengers per day. But, due to Omicron, it came down 1,60,000 passengers, per day. However, in the last seven days around 382,000 people / day have taken to air,” he added.

Investments

According to him, around ₹60,000 crore of investments are expected in green and brownfield airports across the country in the next 2 to 3 years. Investments are to be made by both AAI and the private sector. While nearly ₹29,000 crore will be made in brownfield and greenfield projects by the AAI, another ₹30,000 crore (approximately) will be made the private sector.

Covid has also granted Indian carriers to scale up their cargo operations. From a mere two2 per cent market share, Indian carriers now have a 19 per cent market share; while revenue from cargo operations have increased to ₹2,300 crore (for carriers and freighters); up from ₹1,500 crore.

Around 33 new cargo terminals will also be set up in the next two-to-three years, the Union Minister said.

Airport leasing

Scindia also defended the Centre’s move to lease out airports to private entities saying the profitability of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will go up and the increase in revenues (post leasing) will go towards further infrastructure improvements.

“Its a 50 year lease and not sale or divestment; I would like to mention here. Had these 6 airports been with AAI the approximate per year income will be around 550 crore; against which we would now get ₹904 crore per year. That is a 64 per cent increase in earnings,” he said.

The six airports in question include Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuran and Guwahati.

The total number of airports in the country now stands at 140, which we resolve to take to 220 by 2025, Scindia said.

Around 15 per cent of pilots in India are women, he said, adding that as against the global average of 5 per cent.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW