India - Air transport, passengers carried

The value for Air transport, passengers carried in India was 68,959,630 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 50 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 167,499,100 in 2019 and a minimum value of 2,554,000 in 1971.

Definition: Air passengers carried include both domestic and international aircraft passengers of air carriers registered in the country.

Source: International Civil Aviation Organization, Civil Aviation Statistics of the World and ICAO staff estimates.

See also:

Year Value
1970 2,671,600
1971 2,554,000
1972 3,285,800
1973 3,391,600
1974 3,037,300
1975 3,839,900
1976 4,534,000
1977 5,147,500
1978 6,099,600
1979 6,546,800
1980 6,603,100
1981 7,574,500
1982 8,391,700
1983 9,164,800
1984 10,125,700
1985 10,993,800
1986 11,785,200
1987 12,668,600
1988 12,863,100
1989 12,740,100
1990 10,862,200
1991 10,717,400
1992 11,127,100
1993 9,441,600
1994 11,518,400
1995 14,260,600
1996 13,394,600
1997 16,039,800
1998 16,521,000
1999 16,005,400
2000 17,299,480
2001 16,862,740
2002 17,633,020
2003 19,455,080
2004 23,934,070
2005 27,879,460
2006 40,288,790
2007 51,897,450
2008 49,877,940
2009 54,446,370
2010 64,374,250
2011 73,996,910
2012 72,151,830
2013 75,589,070
2014 82,718,880
2015 98,927,860
2016 119,577,800
2017 139,752,400
2018 164,035,600
2019 167,499,100
2020 68,959,630

Development Relevance: Transport infrastructure - highways, railways, ports and waterways, and airports and air traffic control systems - and the services that flow from it are crucial to the activities of households, producers, and governments. Because performance indicators vary widely by transport mode and focus (whether physical infrastructure or the services flowing from that infrastructure), highly specialized and carefully specified indicators are required to measure a country's transport infrastructure. The air transport industry a vital engine of global socio-economic growth. It is of vital importance for economic development, creating direct and indirect employment, supporting tourism and local businesses, and stimulating foreign investment and international trade. Economic growth, technological change, market liberalization, the growth of low cost carriers, airport congestion, oil prices and other trends affect commercial aviation throughout the world.

Limitations and Exceptions: The air transport data represent the total (international and domestic) scheduled traffic carried by the air carriers registered in a country. Countries submit air transport data to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the basis of standard instructions and definitions issued by ICAO. In many cases, however, the data include estimates by ICAO for nonreporting carriers. Where possible, these estimates are based on previous submissions supplemented by information published by the air carriers, such as flight schedules. The data cover the air traffic carried on scheduled services, but changes in air transport regulations in Europe have made it more difficult to classify traffic as scheduled or nonscheduled. Thus recent increases shown for some European countries may be due to changes in the classification of air traffic rather than actual growth. In the case of multinational air carriers owned by partner States, traffic within each partner State is shown separately as domestic and all other traffic as international. "Foreign" cabotage traffic (i.e. traffic carried between city-pairs in a State other than the one where the reporting carrier has its principal place of business) is shown as international traffic. A technical stop does not result in any flight stage being classified differently than would have been the case had the technical stop not been made. For countries with few air carriers or only one, the addition or discontinuation of a home-based air carrier may cause significant changes in air traffic. Data for transport sectors are not always internationally comparable. Unlike for demographic statistics, national income accounts, and international trade data, the collection of infrastructure data has not been "internationalized."

Statistical Concept and Methodology: For statistical uses, departures are equal to the number of landings made or flight stages flown. A flight stage is the operation of an aircraft from take-off to its next landing. A flight stage is classified as either international or domestic. International flight stage is one or both terminals in the territory of a State, other than the State in which the air carrier has its principal place of business. Domestic flight stage is not classifiable as international. Domestic flight stages include all flight stages flown between points within the domestic boundaries of a State by an air carrier whose principal place of business is in that State. Flight stages between a State and territories belonging to it, as well as any flight stages between two such territories, should be classified as domestic. This applies even though a stage may cross international waters or over the territory of another State. The number of passengers carried is obtained by counting each passenger on a particular flight (with one flight number) once only and not repeatedly on each individual stage of that flight, with a single exception that a passenger flying on both the international and domestic stages of the same flight should be counted as both a domestic and an international passenger.

Aggregation method: Sum

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Infrastructure Indicators

Sub-Topic: Transportation