India beats Japan to become 3rd largest aviation market in domestic traffic
India has become the third-largest aviation market in terms of domestic passenger traffic, beating Japan, an industry report has said.
India’s domestic air-passenger traffic was 100 million in 2016, behind only the United States (719 million) and China (436 million), Sydney-based aviation think-tank the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said in its latest report.
India acquired the third spot globally by unseating Japan, which flew 97 million domestic passengers in 2016, according to the Press Trust of India.
Domestic air traffic has shown consistent growth of 20-25 per cent throughout 2015 and 2016, peaking in January this year at 25.13 per cent.
However, domestic travel demand rose 16 per cent in February, ending the long streak of more than 20 per cent.
According to CAPA, India, which enjoyed the fourth position in terms of overall air-passenger traffic (both domestic and international) along with the United Kingdom, has also inched closer to becoming the third-largest overall by March next year.
“India will become the third-largest market two to three years ahead of what was projected. This is because the growth has been much higher,” said Kapil Kaul, head of CAPA India.
Japan, which flew 141 million passengers in 2016, was ahead of India, whose total air-passenger traffic was 131 million in the previous year, CAPA found.
The United States with 815 million passengers in 2016 enjoyed the top position, followed by China with 490 million, according to the report.
“While we will reach the third spot for both domestic and international air travel ahead of the projected period, we will remain at that position for a very long time because it will not be easy to surpass China and the US,” Kaul said.
An aviation market is defined by traffic to, from and within the country.
