May could see record air travel despite heat wave
Summer travel searches on booking platforms rise, despite heat and high fares
Indians are packing travel bags for summer, braving heat waves and steep fares as school vacations and annual holidays beckon. Air travel that hit a daily peak in April is expected to rise further as more travellers work out plans for May and June, cheering airlines and travel industry alike.
While there is heightened demand for cooler destinations, places that are typically warm at this time are also seeing an interest. Searing heat has not affected air travel, and high demand has kept fares elevated, industry executives said.
“We haven’t seen any impact on bookings or searches for the summer season on account of the heat wave. On the contrary, flight searches for May have seen an alltime high. Domestic flight travel searches for May and June 2024 are up by 20%, and for international, they are up by 70% as compared to last year,” said Aloke Bajpai, the CEO of travel booking platform Ixigo.
Advance average air fares for a Delhi-Goa flight in May are
SUMMER BREAK
EVEN places that are warm at this time are seeing an interest
FLIGHT searches for May have touched an all-time high
around ₹5,767, 6% higher than a year ago, Ixigo data showed. Fares are 19% higher for Mumbai-Jaipur at ₹5,033, and up over 20% to ₹7,200 for Delhi-Dharamshala.
Omnichannel travel platform Thomas Cook has also seen an increase of 10-30% in average advance fares to Sri Lanka and
AROUND 13.3 mn domestic travellers likely in April
Nepal from various hubs such as Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai for the upcoming summer, and an increased preference for Bhutan as well. For online travel platform Cleartrip, most popular destinations include Goa, Bagdogra, Srinagar, Port Blair, Varanasi, Bangkok, Phuket, Singapore, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur.
“It is likely that the summer of May 2024 may see extremely high domestic air traffic, which could range between 13 million and 14 million passengers,” said Aashish Gupta, consulting CEO, the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality.
In February, Mint reported that airline lease rates have shot up at a time of worldwide aircraft shortage, which is expected to show up in air fares. Aircraft deliveries have been delayed due to shortage of skilled labour and raw materials, and an engine recall by Pratt & Whitney.
Official numbers for April’s air passenger traffic are not out yet, but rough calculations show around 13.3 million domestic air passengers during the month. This is around 3% higher than last April, and over 20% higher than the air traffic registered in the same month during pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Air passenger numbers hit a record 470,751 on 21 April, crossing the previous record of 456,082 set in April 2023. For the JanuaryApril period, air traffic continues