New Delhi, March 26, 2017: India has beaten Japan to become the third largest aviation market in terms of domestic passenger traffic, an industry report has stated.

In its latest report, Sydney-based aviation think-tank Center for Asia Pacific Aviation has shown that the domestic air passenger traffic in India stood at 100 million in 2016 and was behind only the US (719 million) and China (436 million). India gained the third spot globally by beating Japan, which flew 97 million domestic passengers in 2016, CAPA said.

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A consistent growth of 20 -25 per cent has been shown by domestic air traffic throughout 2015 and 2016, peaking in January this year at 25.13 per cent. However, the domestic travel demand rose 16 percent in February this year, that put an end to the long streak of over 20 per cent.

According to CAPA, India which occupied the fourth position in terms of overall air passenger traffic (both domestic and international) along with the UK, is also gradually getting closer to becoming the third largest one by March next year.

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Kapil Kaul, head of CAPA India believes that India will become the third largest market 2-3 years ahead of what was projected because of the much higher growth.

According to PTI reports, Japan flew 141 million passengers in 2016 and was ahead of India whose total air passenger traffic was 131 million in the previous year, as per CAPA's statistics.

In 2016 United States enjoyed that top position with 815 million passengers. China followed with 490 million, according to the report.

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"While we will reach the third spot for both domestic and international air travel ahead of the projected period, we will remain at that position for a very long time because it will not be easy to surpass China and the US," Kaul added.

– prepared by Durba Mandal of NewsGram. Twitter: @dubumerang