December to set a post-pandemic record for passenger numbers as air travel surges

December is poised to set a post-pandemic record for the number of passengers as air travel in India surges. The airfares have also gone up in December compared to the previous months due to the sudden demand surge.

Passenger demand surge

Mint quoted Software-as-a-service (SaaS) company RateGain and said that outbound flight bookings from India for early December have surpassed the number for the entire month of November. RateGain still expects 15-20% monthly increase in bookings for December.

Also Read: India's aviation sector soars: September sees 6% surge in domestic air traffic

The in-bound flights to India are also showing a slight uptick and is expected to rise 5-10% month-on-month rise compared with November. As per data release by government in December the daily average of air travellers have touched nearly 45,000, surpassing the previous 2023 high of 430,000 passengers in May.

Airfare surge

This skyrocketing demand coupled with limited aircraft and parts shortage has led to higher fares compared with October’s Navratri and Dussehra season.

Aloke Bajpai, ixigo’s CEO told Mint that there has been a 20-25% rise in fares for December over October. However, fares for the year-end peak season are lower than the previous year, partly due to recent reductions in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices.

The ATF prices were cut 4.6% to ₹106,155.67 per kl on 1 December. Despite these fuel price cuts, the airfares remain over 80% higher than in 2019. Jet Fuel alone accounts for 40% of airlines' expenses.

Among nations in the Indo-Pacific region, India has witnessed the biggest surge in airfare, as per a survey conducted by the Airports Council International and Flare Aviation Consulting.

Nishant Pitti of EaseMyTrip told Mint that fares on key domestic routes for late December have risen up to 50%.

“In fact, after covid, travel to and from India has continued to be substantially more expensive than it was before, on average by 30-40%. We have observed that airfares have seen a notable increase of up to 50% for the 24 December–1 January on major domestic routes such as Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai-Bengaluru, and Mumbai-Chennai," Pitti told Mint.

Domestic hotspots Goa, Jaipur, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Puducherry remain popular. Travel portals have also witnessed a slight uptick in international travel. As per data from ixigo, Dubai, Bangkok, New York, Colombo, Bali and Male are the currently the top international destinations booked for travel in December.

2024 Forecast

RateGain’s forecasts for January 2024 indicate a sustained rise in outbound bookings and a notable surge in business travel arrivals. Specifically, outbound flights for January 2024 are tracking 12% higher than the same period last year.

Additionally, while inbound flight bookings for leisure in January mirror last year’s figures, business travel arrivals show a substantial 33% year-on-year increase, according to RateGain.