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Airlines expected to grow at 8.5% per year till 2015

India’s aviation sector, which contracted 4.7% in 2008, is expected to grow by at least 8.5% every year till 2015, civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Thursday. “We do expect that kind of growth because of the 300-million-strong middle class,” Patel said.

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If the economic situation improves, the sector could even see a 25-30% growth, the minister said.
“It’s reasonable,” domestic carrier SpiceJet Ltd’s chief commercial officer Samyukth Sridharan said.
The country’s civil aviation sector grew 46.4% in 2006 and 32.5% in 2007, before shrinking in 2008 in the wake of a global economic downturn.
In the first half of 2009, traffic has dipped by 4.9% but figures for June and July have shown better-than- expected passenger numbers.
Civil aviation in India—the world’s ninth-biggest—is a $14 billion (Rs67,340 crore) industry.

Source| Tarun Shukla/Livemint