The crisis in India’s civil aviation sector shows no signs of abating, with the slowdown in the economy continuing to impact the bottom lines of almost all carriers. But most recent trends show that the cargo sector offers more potential in lifting the sagging bottom lines as compared to passenger traffic. This is especially so if a revival in global trade pushed up merchandise flows on the air routes.
Overall trends show that passengers handled continue to be much below capacity with the numbers still around one million lower than the peak levels achieved in May 2008. Total passengers who boarded the flights in July 2009 were only 9.73 million, which is far below the number of 10.69 million in May last year. The worst affected is the domestic segment where the total passengers were only 6.94 million in July 2009, which was 1.16 million lower than the 8.11 million in May 2008.
Though the scenario improved over the next few months with domestic passenger offtake steadily picking up to reach a post-crisis peak level of 7.66 million in May 2009, the numbers faltered during the peak summer holiday season with the passengers handled steadily declining in the next two months to 7.27 million in June and 6.94 million in July, respectively. Long-term trends show that the share of domestic passengers in total passengers has declined from a high of 75.9% in May 2008 to 71.3% by July 2009.
The airlines have sought to bolster the sharp fall in domestic passengers by attempting to bolster the international passenger traffic. This strategy seems to have been initially successful, as the number of international passengers handled steadily went up from a low of 2.35 million in September 2008, to touch a high of 2.95 million passengers in December 2008.
But the scenario seems to have deteriorated since then with the monthly numbers falling over the next three months to just 2.58 million by April 2009. The recent holiday season seems to have played a buoyant role in the international segment, which saw the number of passengers steadily increasing over the next few months to touch 2.79 million by July, which is only a few notches below the 2.95 million of traffic handled in December last year.
The scenario seems to be positive on the freight front with the overall freight handled touching new highs in July 2009. Long-term trends show that the overall freight traffic had steadily dipped from a peak level of 156.86 thousand tonne to touch 154.85 thousand tonne in September 2008. The negative trends accelerated with the advent of the global crisis with freight traffic hitting a new low of 125.98 thousand tonne in January 2009. But the scenario has improved significantly since then with the total freight carried picking up by almost a quarter to 158.1 thousand tonne by July 2009.
But the improvement in freight traffic was more in the domestic segment than on international routes. Trends show that international freight traffic, which dipped from a peak level of 104.46 thousand tonne in September 2008, dipped sharply to a low of 81.46 thousand tonne in January 2009. It then slowly revived to 102.11 thousand tonne in March 2009—a level at which it has hovered over the last few months.
The revival was more pronounced in the domestic freight segment. Numbers show that the domestic freight traffic, which dipped from a peak level of 50.39 thousand tonne in September 2008 to a low of 42.08 thousand tonne in February 2009, has picked up by more than one-third to reach a record 56.94 thousand tonne in July 2009. Clearly, the freight traffic seems to offer more potential for boosting bottomlines in the aviation sector than the still elusive passenger traffic.
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