India's domestic market growth highest in the world: IATA

NEW DELHI: India’s domestic aviation market grew the highest in the world during the month of October, shows International Air Transport Association ( IATA) data.

The data shows that revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) in the Indian domestic passenger market grew by 17.6% followed by China that grew at 12.8%. During the month, Total revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) rose 7.5%, which was in line with the 7.4% year-over-year expansion seen in September, said IATA.

“There was a wide disparity in results, with Brazil and Australia both showing declines while China, India and Russia posted double-digit increases. Domestic capacity climbed 5.0%, and load factor improved 1.8 percentage points to 82.7%,” IATA said in a statement.

IATA said that the growth in air travel has been stimulated by lower fares, particularly for leisure travel.

“Data for the first 8 months of the year show a 5% fall in average fares in currency-adjusted terms. It is estimated that the fall in fares has supported approximately 3 percentage points of the rise in traffic year-to-date,” it said.