India to be world's third largest aviation market by 2025
India's aviation industry has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past few years, driven by government schemes, consistent increase in passengers, and investment by airlines. Notably, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), India's civil aviation market is set to become the world's third largest aviation market by 2025. Here's all about it.
India has been the fastest growing aviation market for years
India has bagged IATA's first prize for the fastest growing aviation market three years in a row up until 2017. As of May 2018, it remained the fastest growing aviation market, seeing a year-on-year growth of 16.6%. India was followed by China, Russia, and USA.
Drivers of growth: Government schemes
A major driver of growth in the sector over the past few years has been government schemes like UDAN and NABH Nirman. The former aims to connect 56 and 31 unserved airports and helipads respectively, while the latter aims to expand India's overall airport capacity by more than five times so that they can handle up to a billion trips annually.
Drivers of growth: Investment by airlines
As envisioned by the government, Indian airline carries such as IndiGo and Vistara are actively procuring new aircraft to fill the demand and supply gap in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. In terms of the larger picture, Indian airlines are reportedly intending to buy a whopping 2,100 new aircraft for $290bn in a bid to increase flights and accommodate the ever-growing number of flyers.
Drivers of growth: Passenger numbers
Another major driver of growth has been passenger numbers. Coupled with increasing purchasing power and decreasing ticket prices, passenger numbers have grown phenomenally over the last few years, seeing consistent year-on-year growth. While efforts are on to expand the capacities of India's already over-burdened airports to handle the increasing number of passengers an flights, congestion is expected for the next 3-4 years.
The aviation industry is set to create 2.5-5 lakh jobs
Perhaps most importantly, the unprecedented growth in India's aviation industry is set to create around 2.5-5 lakh new jobs across several sectors including airport management, operations, logistics, retail, medical tourism etc. While these jobs might be open to people from varied educational backgrounds, if you're really interested, it's advisable to get at least a BBA, and preferably an MBA in aviation management.
