Mumbai: Revising downwards its forecast, global aviation consultancy CAPA on Friday projected India's domestic air traffic at 5.5-7 crore for the current financial year citing structural damage and weakness of customer sentiment becoming more visible.
The latest forecast is a sharp downward revision compared to the traffic of 8-9 crore passengers estimated earlier for the same period.
In the wake of the pandemic, the country is under lockdown till May 3 and commercial flight operations are also suspended. "CAPA has revised its traffic projections downwards for FY2021 from our April 6 update.
The estimate for domestic traffic has declined from 80-90 million (8-9 crore), to 55- 70 million (5.5-7 crore), while international estimates are down from 35-40 million (3.5-4 crore) to 20-27 million (2-2.7 crore) as the structural damage and weakness of customer sentiment become more visible and forward bookings currently remain frozen," it said in a report.
Social distancing protocols would constrain airline capacity but demand in the second quarter is expected to be so weak in any case that it is unlikely that traffic would be much higher even if there were no restrictions, it noted.
