Domestic air passenger traffic is estimated to have logged an 83 per cent growth year-on-year at 10.5-million in April as Covid-19 infection cases waned, leaving a gap of just 5 per cent when compared to the pre-pandemic level, ICRA said on Monday.
Indian carriers had flown around 11 million passengers in April 2019.
However, the domestic airline operators saw the international passenger traffic marginally surpassing the pre-pandemic numbers (around 1.83 million), with total volumes standing at around 1.85 million, it said.
It also said that rising aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices due to ongoing geo-political issues linked to the Russia-Ukraine conflict continue to evolve as a major threat to the recovery process.
