Jan domestic air traffic drops 42.7% on flight cancellations, curbs

The first month of 2022 saw a slump in air traffic as airlines cancelled flights and states reintroduced curbs due to the Omicron wave of Covid-19.

Domestic airlines flew 6.4 million passengers in January, a sequential decline of 42.7 per cent. In December airlines had carried 11.2 million passengers – which was also the highest in 2021.

Traffic started slowing down from end December and airlines too reduced capacity to factor for the fall in demand. Market leader IndiGo cut its flights by 20 per cent in January. The daily passenger figure fell below 200,000.

Industry wide load factors among large airlines fell to 64.9 per cent in January from 79.2 per cent in December.