Hyderabad, Jan 18 (IANS): India’s domestic air passenger traffic will grow to 300 million by 2030, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said here on Thursday.

Addressing Wings India 2024 at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad, he said the domestic passenger traffic, which was 60 million in 2014 grew to 145 million pre-Covid and it further went up to 153 million in 2023.

He said despite the projected growth of 300 million by 2030, India will be one of the most under penetrated markets across top 20 markets in the world.

"Our penetration today is roughly 3-4 per cent, which will go up to 10-15 per cent. We will still have 85 per cent penetration to go and we are preparing for this potential by creating capacities, removing bottlenecks and simplifying procedures so that by 2047 the aviation sector is able to support 20 trillion dollar economy," he said.

He noted that the daily passenger traffic pre-Covid was 4,00,425 and the same grew to 4,50,000 in April-May and further up to 4,67,000 passengers per day in November-December 2023.

The domestic passenger traffic in last 10 years grew at CAGR of 15.3 per cent while international traffic grew at 6.1 per cent.

India is the third largest domestic civil aviation market and seventh largest international civil aviation market. If both are combined, India is the fifth largest civil aviation market in the world.

The minister said that India has become the largest purchaser of aircraft in the world after the United States and China. He expects that India's fleet will go up from 713 to more than 2,000 in the next decade. He noted that the country, which had 400 aircraft in 2013-14, has grown its fleet to 713 aircraft.

Scindia said that during the last 10 years, India added 74 airports, waterdromes and heliports, taking the number to 149. He said this number would cross 200 by 2030.

Scindia added that while connecting tier II and tier III cities, the Ministry kept its eyes on metros. He noted that six metros had a throughput capability of 221 million passengers in 2021 and in the last two-and-half-years this grew to 261 million. In next four years, the throughput capability will reach close to 420 million with two new greenfield airports coming up - one at Navi Mumbai and another at Jewar near Delhi.

The minister inaugurated four-day Wings India 2024, Asia's biggest civil aviation event, at Begumpet Airport. Accompanied by Minister of State for Civil Aviation V. K. Singh, he also inaugurated the exhibition. Vumlunmang Vualnam, FICCI Civil Aviation Committee Chairman and President and Managing Director of Airbus (India & South Asia) Remi Maillard and Telangana minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy also addressed the inaugural session.