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The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has urged the government to support airlines in India.
“We are a bit disappointed by the financial relief announced (as) almost nothing is devoted for airlines,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General (DG) and Chief Executive Officer, on Friday evening.
Dip in flight passengers
The IATA’s DG said that there is likely to be a 47 per cent decline in passengers carried by Indian airlines while revenues will be $11 billion less than last year and about three million jobs could be at risk. The IATA DG was participating in a webinar on Designing a sustainable roadmap for the revival of Indian aviation , organised by the CAPA India.
Angela Gittens, Director General, Airports Council International, added that she was disappointed as well that nothing much had been provided by the Indian government to the airport sector.
“Airlines and airports are running out of money. Getting the aviation system back on board will help the economy,” she said, adding airports globally are likely to see 4.6 billion fewer passengers as compared with the 3.3 billion passengers which had been predicted in April this year. ACI predicts that revenues for global airports could be at around $97 billion which is a 57 per cent drop from earlier.
Sunil Bhaskaran, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia India, said that while he was not in favour of the fare cap that the government has put in place for flights till August 24, he added that this was due to the unprecedented situation. “I hope it is temporary (the fare cap which has been placed by the government on air tickets) and gets out of the way,” he added.
Bhaskaran said that while the Ministry of Civil Aviation had decided that one-third of flights will be allowed to operate but because of States coming up with new rules for quarantine, the actual capacity is at almost 20 per cent while average passenger load factor is at about 50 per cent. The bright spot is that fuel costs, which are almost 40 per cent of costs, have “significantly” come down.
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