August has seen the revival of strong travel demand among flyers despite high air fares, as per industry data. Air travel during the long weekend of Independence Day and Raksha Bandhan saw around 420,000-450,000 passengers on a daily basis at flight departures, and travel portals are seeing a 17% increase in bookings for the next weekend as well despite a similar hike in the air fares.
Online travel portal Cleartrip told Mint that it saw an 11% increase in the total bookings for the travel period from 14 to 19 August, compared to the same period in 2023. The increase in bookings was despite a surge in air fares to the extent of 36% for flights to Jaipur, 46% for Lucknow, 35% for Pune, 33% for Mumbai among others.
“For the Janmashtami weekend, the average fare per passenger has increased by 17.6% compared to last year. We have observed a 16.5% increase on year in bookings compared to the same advance booking period last year. Overall, there is a 21.4% increase in bookings compared to a typical August weekend,” Gaurav Patwari, vice-president, Air Category, Cleartrip, said.
Nearly 442,000 passengers travelled on an average daily during period between 14 August and 20 August, as per the data from the ministry of civil aviation. The period saw the onset of the country’s Independence Day, Parsi New Year and Raksha Bandhan festival. The highest daily air traffic during this period was recorded on 18 August when the air traffic was recorded at 457,287 passengers and the highest flight count for the period was registered on 19 August at 3,103 flight departures. In July, the average daily air traffic was recorded at nearly 420,000 passengers.
Long weekend has set new records
“This long weekend has set new records with flight bookings seeing a 40-50% year-on-year increase. Domestic favourites like Dehradun and Goa topped the list, while international destinations such as Bangkok, Dubai and Bali, along with emerging short-haul locations like Azerbaijan and Georgia, were among the top choices for travellers in terms of bookings and searches,” Rajnish Kumar, Group co-chief executive officer, ixigo, said.
Industry executives are hopeful of a further strengthening of travel sentiment over the next two months with the onset of festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Onam, Durga Puja, Dusshera, and Diwali, among others. However, concerns remain over deployment of capacity as the global supply chain issues continue to impact the ability of airlines across the world to deploy capacity at a consistent pace.
For the next weekend which will see the onset of Janmashtmi on 26 August, omnichannel travel portal Thomas Cook has observed a rise in sentiment towards spiritual and pilgrimage tourism. In addition, the portal has also a growing trend of travellers taking multiple “mini-cations” across domestic and short-haul outbound destinations.
Similarly, ixigo is seeing a rise in bookings for destinations such as Varanasi, Srinagar and Jaipur from major metros for the upcoming weekend.
“We have observed a significant uptick in travel by India’s migrant young working professionals, who prefer to travel back home to celebrate with family and for a bit of bonding time,” Indiver Rastogi, president & group head, Global Business Travel, Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel, said.
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