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Leisure and high-value purchases – a swivel of experiential/discretionary spends

The data on travel for leisure strongly indicates that Indians are spending more on gaining experiences as incomes rise. Air passengers’ volume growth in India has not just recovered to pre-pandemic levels in the last two years, but it is currently at a historic high. Across major airports, as per the data from the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the last fiscal year 2023-24 saw 376 million passengers traveling, beating the previous highest volume of 345 million in FY2018-19. While international air travel has recovered to levels seen in the pre-COVID years, the bulk of this growth has been observed from domestic travelers. The volumes for this segment have reached a new peak of 307 million passengers. This makes India the third largest domestic airline market in the world, after the USA and China, as highlighted by a leading global travel data aggregating company OAG (www.OAG.com).

Domestic passenger growth faster than international passenger

100 150 200 250 300 350 400

376

345

341

327

309

265

307

189

275

275

270

243

206

105 115

167

0 50

59

65

69

67

57

70

10

22

Passengers (in Millions)

2016-17

2017-18

2018-19

2019-20

2020-21

2021-22

2022-23

2023-24

Financial Year

Domestic

International

Source: Airports Authority of India

10