October 2021 outstanding for airlines as 88 lakhs fly in festive week

Dussehra and pre-Diwali vacation season has drawn close to 88 lakh domestic passengers to air travel, making it an outstanding October for the Indian airline industry, Times Of India reported on Wednesday. Last year in October, airlines had carried only around 52 lakh passengers, which was 70% lower in the corresponding month this year. Back in October 2019, Dussehra and Diwali were celebrated in the same month, where airlines had carried about 1.2 crore passengers. This October, airlines carried only 27% fewer passengers compared to the 2019 period.

In terms of domestic air traffic, the growth in October has been outstanding, given that airlines transported about 69 lakh fliers in September and 65 lakh in August.

Passenger traffic dipped the most on Tuesdays in October

According to the publication, Indian domestic passenger traffic is likely to cross the 1 crore mark by the end of the year. It also added that higher passenger volumes are expected in December as revenge travel will pick up in the last week.

The negative aspect of October’s growth was that it was Sinusoid with weekend peaks and weekday troughs. Passenger traffic peaked from Friday through Sunday and then started to dip, with the biggest on Tuesdays.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has approved over 22,000 flights for the airline’s winter schedule which runs from October 31, 2021 to March 26, 2022. In 2019’s winter schedule there were about 23,000 flights. The government last month had allowed airlines to operate at their full pre-Covid capacity on the domestic sector.