DGCA sees passenger traffic growing at up to 9% this year

NEW DELHI : Domestic air passenger traffic is expected to clock up high single-digit growth in 2019, benefitting from the induction of aircraft by airlines and an expected rise in air travel during the festival season, a senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official said.

“The air passenger growth is expected to be at high single digit, between 7% and 9% during 2019,” Arun Kumar, director general of DGCA, said in an interview on Wednesday. Air passenger traffic grew 3.2% between January and August this year, compared to 21.2% in the same period last year.

“Air passenger growth had slowed down after the grounding of Jet Airways, which also saw the market lose a large chunk of capacity with the grounding of Jet’s aircraft,” Kumar said.