Air passenger traffic falls by 8 lakh in Jan-Feb

The crisis in the global economy has taken its toll on the Indian airline industry.

The crisis in the global economy has taken its toll on the Indian airline industry with the overall passenger traffic in January-February this year falling by almost eight lakh over the year-ago period.

All airlines put together flew 67.61 lakh passengers in January-February this year compared to 75.56 lakh last year,the official traffic data released showed.

As per the world airports report prepared by Airports Council International (ACI),the growth rate of global air traffic in January fell by six per cent year-on-year while that of air freight declined by “a frightening 27 per cent”.

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Meanwhile,ACI Director (Economics) Andreas Schimm has warned that “we must brace ourselves for further turbulent times.”

The ACI,however,said modest growth was experienced at Southeast and East Asian aviation markets,including China.

However in the Indian domestic arena,the picture was a repeat of last month,as passenger traffic grew marginally from 33.26 lakh in January to 33.36 lakh,even as the global trend showed a decline. The figure was 33.23 lakh in December 2008,according to official figures.

Among domestic carriers,Kingfisher Airlines and its low-cost Kingfisher Red jointly beat their private counterpart Jet Airways-JetLite by carrying the highest number of passengers in February.

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