Passenger traffic to grow at up to 9% in 2019: DGCA

Domestic air passenger traffic is expected to clock up high single-digit growth in 2019, benefitting from the induction of aircraft by airlines and an expected rise in air travel during the festival season, a senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official said.

“The air passenger growth is expected to be at high single digit, between 7% and 9% during 2019,” Arun Kumar, director general of DGCA, said in an interview on Wednesday. Air passenger traffic grew 3.2% between January and August this year, compared to 21.2% in the same period last year.

“Air passenger growth had slowed down after the grounding of Jet Airways, which also saw the market lose a large chunk of capacity with the grounding of Jet’s aircraft,” Kumar said.

“But airlines like SpiceJet and Vistara have since then inducted several of Jet Airways’ planes in their fleet.” When Jet Airways was grounded, more than 80 planes belonging to the Mumbaibased airline were deregistered. A big chunk of Jet’s fleet of Boeing 737 NG aircraft is currently being operated by SpiceJet Ltd and Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines.

At present, SpiceJet has about 65 Boeing 737 family aircraft on its fleet, according to the airline’s website, while Vistara has nine such planes. Vistara also operates 23 Airbus A320 planes.

Indian aviation is set to reach its largest fleet size by December 2019, Kumar said. RHIK KUNDU