Rohit Vaid New Delhi, December 11, 2018 : .IndiGo has improved its outlook for 2022 due to increased domestic passenger traffic and positive response to new intra-regional flight.
Nevertheless, the airline remains ‘cautiously optimistic’ on the impact the Omicron Covid-19 variant might have on the country’s aviation sector.
In conversation with IANS, Sanjay Kumar, Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer, IndiGo revealed that the airline has almost reached 100 per cent pre-Covid capacity utilisation level.
Kumar stated that “2020 and 2021 were indeed very difficult not only for the aviation and travel industries but also for the global economy and the economy is what drives our business.”
“The domestic traffic has been good and has grown very strongly in recent months as restrictions and the pandemic eased.Things are improving gradually, and we are almost back to domestic pre-Covid capacity as well, though international travel may take a little longer.”
On intra-regional connectivity, Kumar said that the airline is focusing on connecting India’s large, mid-size and small cities.
We are constantly looking for new opportunities throughout the country, and we expand our network to meet the demands.
“We are closely monitoring the current trends across air traffic, train passengers as well as economic situation.Based on all these factors and various demand estimates, we are working on new routes and flights.”
Recently, the airline witnessed encouraging demand during the festive season.
We are certain that air travel will be more popular than ever because of the increased regional connectivity.Our system was able to handle a strong holiday season, and it had the highest capacity ever since pre-Covid days on November 8.
“So, there are some good things happening on capacity and revenue.We are already at 1,500 flights per day which is equal to our pre Covid levels.Also, with the upcoming holiday season and people looking forward to exploring the country, we are expecting stronger domestic demand and we remain optimistic going forward.”
Besides, he cited that the positive demand trend has become self-sustaining over the last few months.
“We analysed traffic each month, and we found that trends were up.It is encouraging to see the demand sustaining right now with the trend for future bookings and unit revenue going up.
“The demand has certainly picked up in the festive season and we hope for it to continue the upswing.Domestically our capacity now is higher than in pre-Covid times.We are getting above 80-85 per cent load factor so yes; traffic is coming back encouragingly.”
However, he added that the airline has been seeing challenges in terms of international services coming back with the emergence of another strain and many countries including India reinstating stringent protocols and restrictions for travel.
“We monitor the situation closely.”
(Rohit Vaid can be contacted at [email protected])
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