Domestic air travel demand up

New Delhi, April 2: Domestic air travel demand surged in India by 14.8 per cent in February, the highest worldwide, partly on the back of airlines keeping ticket prices lower to stimulate market in lean travel season, global airlines body International Air Transport Association said in its monthly traffic report on Thursday.

According to IATA, the overall global demand rose 6.2 per cent in February 2015 over the same month last year with international demand up by 6.8 per cent while domestic demand saw a growth of 5.3 per cent in the reporting month.

“The strongest growth occurred in India and Brazil, followed by China, which benefitted from Lunar New Year- related travel,” IATA said in a release. “Demand in India began to improve in the latter part of 2014, partly owing to market stimulation, and that has continued in 2015,” it said.

March and September quarters of the fiscal are traditionally lean seasons for the airlines in the country, and people are wooed with low fares. While the overall seat factor of the airline globally remained flat at 80.4 per cent on domestic routes, it rose 0.7 percentage points to 77.4 per cent on international flights during the month, IATA traffic report said. Also, airlines globally increased their domestic capacity by 5.3 per cent while for international routes it climbed to 5.7 per cent in February, it said.