India's air traffic touches 1.29 crore passengers in Dec 2022, crosses pre-COVID levels

Air traffic has been picking up in recent months after the airline industry was significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The monthly domestic air passenger traffic touched 1.29 crore to cross the pre-COVID level in December 2022, with Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia terming it as a healthy trend and a good sign for the industry. In December 2019, the domestic air passenger traffic stood at 1.26 crore.

"2022 sets new record in air passenger movement," according to a graphic shared by the minister on his Twitter handle on Tuesday. The traffic reached 1.29 crore in December last year.

There is a healthy trend in domestic passenger movement of late - a good sign for the aviation sector, the minister said in a tweet. "Monthly domestic passenger numbers in December 2022 crossed the pre-Covid-29 high!" Scindia said.

Recently, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) revealed that air traffic jumped nearly 27 percent to 114.07 lakh in October compared to the year-ago period when it was 89.85 lakh.

Indian airlines carried 1.14 crore passengers in October, 10 percent higher than the number of people flying in September. In September, the air traffic number stood at 103.55 lakh. The country's largest airline IndiGo's market share declined to 56.7 percent in October compared to the previous month when it stood at 58 percent.