Aided by the start of full-fledged operations by low-cost carriers and increased services by international airlines to new Indian cities, air passenger traffic grew 20.1 per cent in August 2005, the highest monthly growth in 2005.
According to the latest data released by the Airports Authority of India, passenger traffic international and domestic in August 2005 was 5.49 million, compared with 4.57 million in the corresponding period last year.
Domestic passenger traffic helped drive the traffic growth.
Domestic passengers grew 24.4 per cent to 3.73 million in August 2005 from 3 million in August 2004. The number of international passengers in August 2005 was 1.79 million, growth of 11.9 per cent compared with 1.57 million in the corresponding period last year.
"Some of the main factors driving the growth are low fares and launch of new services by new carriers. The growth in the international passenger traffic has resulted from the government's decision to open the skies," said a senior executive with the state-run Indian Airlines.
In the international sector also, India has seen major expansion by carriers.
Indian Airlines started operations to Kuala Lumpur and Kabul in April 2005. Ethiad Airways and Cosmic Air started operations in December 2004 and Azerbaijan Hava Yollari Airlines started operations to New Delhi in July 2005.
According to the AAI, the higher growth in traffic at Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Calicut is due to the increase in service frequency by existing airlines and start of new operations by Air India Express in the southern region and Delta Airlines at Chennai.
The AAI data shows that domestic aircraft movements increased by 11.0 per cent during August 2005. It has also been pointed out that the growth in traffic at Hyderabad, Jammu, Bhopal and Visakhapatnam is due to the start of operations by low-cost airlines and an increase in frequency of existing airlines.
Low-cost airlines, namely SpiceJet and Kingfisher Airlines, started their operations in May 2005.