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New Delhi, December 7 The country’s civil aviation sector has seen a V-shaped recovery post-Covid with domestic daily passenger demand registering a record high of 4.13 lakh (departing pax) earlier this week thereby breaching pre-Covid numbers, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, told businessline in an interview.
India’s pre-Covid high was around 4.07 lakh passengers per day; and on November 27 this year, the domestic daily air traffic breached those numbers with 409,831 passengers and 2,739 departures. Over the last few days, the daily air passenger traffic has been hovering well above the 400,000 mark.
As per Civil Aviation Ministry officials, daily passenger departures on December 6 were 403,302 while departing flights were 2,798. Airlines (across brands) had an average passenger load factor of 82.6 per cent – 93.1 per cent.
“We are at a new historical high in India in terms of passengers per day. I firmly believe that the civil aviation sector in terms of passenger demand has experienced a V-shaped recovery. And do keep in mind that this is a sector that was hit the hardest (due to Covid) across the world. There were assets idling on the ground and fixed costs were being paid. But, having been through that very difficult period, we are today witnessing a V-shaped recovery in India,” Scindia said.
Benefits of low ATF rates
According to the Minister, 28 States and Union Territories are currently on-board and have ATF taxes in the 1 – 4 per cent bracket. Work in on to bring on-board the remaining 8-odd Sṭtates where tax on jet fuel continues to be in 20–30 per cent range.
In July last year, there were just 12 States and UTs which had a 1–4 per cent VAT rate on jet fuel; with majority having tax rates between 20 and 30 per cent. Subsequently, on request from the Union Minister, 16 States reworked their ATF VAT rates and brought it between 1 and 4 per cent.
“I continue to urge these remaining eight States to come on-board because the multiplier effect of civil aviation (in a state) is tremendous – both in terms of increasing connectivity as airlines will refuel and will (also) go to States where there is lower tax on ATF. Both the refuelling capability and the refuelling revenue increases exponentially,” Scindia said.
Taking Srinagar as a case in point, Scindia said, three weeks after the State government decided to bring down tax on jet fuel, refuelling there went up by 360 per cent.
“Connectivity also goes up once VAT on ATF falls. There has been tremendous movement. And we decided to follow this more difficult route (of reaching out to state governments) whilst we wait for an outcome of GST on VAT. The latter has to follow a certain process and in the interim we have already created that change,” Scindia added.
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