Uptick in air travel, but sector still in eye of storm: Airbus’ Maillard

Indian airlines are currently carrying 60 per cent of the total pre-COVID domestic passengers and this is better than most countries in the world, he said. “This is better but this is far from being a sustainable situation. We are not out of the woods yet. We are still in the eye of the storm.”

Airbus has been observing positive signs such as the pent-up demand for leisure travel in India, he noted.

“There is a desire in people to fly again...Business travellers have started to come back. It is essential for your business to meet your business stakeholders or partners and for that, you need to travel,” Maillard mentioned. “In a nutshell we are still facing a lot of headwinds with the virus and the complexity of the situation. But in the midterm, I think there will be an upswing,” he said. Airbus and Boeing are two of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world.

Scheduled domestic flights in India were suspended between March 25 and May 24, 2020, due to the lockdown. Maillard said international passenger traffic is still weak in India and it is difficult to predict how and when it would recover.

Scheduled international flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 last year. But, special international flights have been permitted since May last year under the Vande Bharat Mission and air bubble arrangements formed with around 24 countries.

Maillard said: “International traffic is also an opportunity for the Indian carriers, whose market share in the country’s international traffic is about 34 per cent.”