Air traffic will raise by 5 million each year

Hyderabad, Feb 24 (UNI) Indian Oil Chairman Sarthak Behuria today predicted that air traffic in India would increase by five million passengers each year over the next ten years.

Inaugurating the 14th international aviation conference organised by Indian Oil here, Mr Behuria said India was the third fastest growing domestic aviation market in the world, having grown by 23 per cent last year.

He said India's domestic and international markets were expected to expand by 30 per cent in 2006 to around 20 million passengers each.

He said according to recent projections by Airbus industries the sale of new aircrafts to Indian carriers would go up to 400 by the year 2019. This reflected that the country would be the third largest market for new aircraft in Asia.

Observing that aviation fuel consumption has been registering consistent growth of around 15 per cent in the country, Mr Behuria said the 'country consumes nearly 3.5 million tonnes of aviation fuel annually. The overall consumption of petroleum products was growing only between two to three per cent.

He said the 'Indian aviation sector was indeed the most happening sector with a potential to drive the country's economy to great levels in the future'.

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