India 9th largest aviation market in world

India has grown into the ninth largest aviation market in the world, with 29.8 million passengers travelling to and from the country during 2008, up 30 per cent from the previous year.

The number is expected to go up to 50 million passengers by 2015, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel told the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry at a meeting here yesterday.

He said the number of international flights to and from India had gone up to 706 per week, an increase of 53 per cent over the previous year.

Today, scheduled air services are available to and from 82 airports in India, as against only 50 in early 2000, Mr Patel said in a detailed presentation to the members of the committee.

The minister said as many as 69 foreign airlines from 49 countries were flying into India at present.

Mr Patel said there had been a 69 per cent from 2005 to 2008 in the number of domestic flights in India and the domestic passenger base stood at 87 million.

Accoridng to him, India ranks fourth after the United States, China and Japan in terms of domestic passengers volume. He expected the number of domestic passengers to grow by 9-10 per cent per annum to reach a level of150-180 million passengers by 2020.

Today, there are 15 scheduled domestic operators and their combined fleet size has risen to nearly 400, helping to stimulate domestic air traffic.

Mr Patel said there had been an annual growth of 12.8 per cent during the last five yeas in the international cargo handled at all Indian airports, going up from 560.2 thousand tonnes in 2001-02 to 1020.9 thousand tonnes in 2006-07.

The Minister said the spectacular growth was just the tip of the iceberg, because India had the least penetrated market for air travel, lower than Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

· India has 0.02 trips per capita as compared to 0.1 of China and 2.2 of USA. He said India had 0.02 trips per capita as compared to 0.1 in China and 2.2 in the United States.

He said there had been an increase in tourist charter flights to India. A total of 686 flights in 2008 brought in 1,50,000 tourists, he said. There had been an increase in non-scheduled operator permits - 99 in 2008 as against 66 in 2007, a growth of 50 per cent.

Mr Patel said the total number of registered aircraft in India was 1375, of which 397 were owned by scheduled operators and 275 by non-scheduled operators. As many as 701 were owned by individuals, corporates and other entities in the "miscellaneous" category. As many as 213 aircraft were registered in 2008.

NNN