Domestic air passenger traffic up by 8.4% in Feb: IATA

Indian domestic passenger traffic saw a growth of 8.4 per cent in February as compared to the corresponding month in 2019, global airlines body IATA said on Thursday, indicating that the novel coronavirus had a minimal impact on the country's aviation sector.

"RPKs (revenue passenger kilometres) picked up in India (up by 8.4 per cent year-on-year) as local carriers boosted air travel demand by lowering airfares in the typically weak travel season," the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said in a statement.

The IATA, which represents around 300 airlines accounting for 82 per cent of the global air traffic, measures passenger growth in terms of RPKs, which is calculated by multiplying the number of passengers with the distance travelled by them.

Globally, RPKs contracted by 14.1 per cent year-on-year in February due to the coronavirus pandemic, the worst performance since the 9/11 terror attacks, the IATA said.