Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Indian Domestic Aviation Industry

Global outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affect different industries and sectors, thereby determining their volatility and preparedness. Previous research works have studied changes in flight traffic, network and passenger metrics at a global level, including India as an entity. Some of these works have presented the Indian scenario by individually studying one of the airlines in India or limiting the study to a few major parameters. This paper discusses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown imposed to curb it, on the Indian domestic aviation industry in its entirety as well as the regional impact on the prominent cities of India. The work presents several metrics of airline data like flight performance and financial endurance, and correlations among them so as to provide important insights. This paper also attempts to draw a comparison between the nature of the effects of the previous global crises and the COVID-19 pandemic on the aviation industry. The study was performed by plotting the airline parameters and comparing the trends of 2019 and 2020 which were eventually analysed using a correlation matrix. It was observed that parameters like passenger load factor were significantly affected and the worst-hit time for the Indian airlines was March 2020 - April 2020 when a nationwide lockdown and ban on domestic flights was imposed. It was also found out that the financial impact of COVID-19 on the aviation industry is unprecedented and deeper rooted than previous outbreaks.