Huge surge in air passenger numbers but overall traffic fails to breach November 2019 mark

livemint.com:

world cup final frenzy did not help the month register more passengers than November 2019. In the end, the traffic this year was 2% lower than the traffic in November 2019. This makes November the only month in 2023 when the traffic dropped below the corresponding month in 2019.

The month had volatility which would put the stock markets to shame. Leading up to the Diwali and the entire Diwali holidays saw muted traffic with the cricket world cup final weekend leading the boost in travel, along with record fares. The lowest traffic was recorded on Nov, 12 which saw just 3.11 lakh passengers while the highest traffic was recorded 13 days later with 4.67 lakh passengers.

A day before the world cup final, fuelled by the additional flights and end of Diwali holidays - airlines carried 456,748 domestic passengers, the highest ever single day traffic. The record lasted just one day, as a new high was reached the very next day, which too lasted a single day. The record was broken again and again with the high recorded on Saturday, November 25, 2023 with 467,451 domestic passengers on 2975 domestic departures with every airline recording over 90% load factors.

The domestic departures are still lower than previous highs which were 3049 domestic departures back in February 2023. In November 2019, domestic traffic stood at 1,29,10,135 passengers which saw 92,388 departures. Last month, the departures were 88,501, 4.2% lower than November 2019.

This is the fifth month in 2023 when the number of departures are lower than those of the corresponding month of 2019. The years 2020 to 2022 have seen artificial restrictions and COVID waves making the data incomparable. The year 2019 saw 14,37,36,256 domestic passengers.