India to become second fastest growing aviation market by 2016: IATA

Air transport body International Air Transport Association (IATA) Thursday said India will become the second fastest growing aviation market in the world by 2016.

"India will have the second highest growth rate at 13.1 percent CAGR (compounded annual growth rate), adding 49.3 million new passengers," IATA said in its Airline Industry Forecast 2012-2016.

India would only be second to Kazakhstan which is expected to experience the fastest growth rate at 22.5% CAGR, adding 3.9 million passengers to the 2.2 million in 2011.

Indian will be followed by China's 10.1% growth rate, which is expected to have an additional 158.9 million new domestic passengers.

According to IATA, the domestic passenger traffic world over is expected to increase by 5.2% and will rise from 1.72 billion in 2011 to 2.21 billion in 2016, with an addition of 494 million passenger over the period under review.

IATA further said the overall passenger traffic will increase by an average of 5.3% per annum between 2012-2016 to reach 3.6 billion passengers, from the 2.8 billion carried in 2011.