Travel in India was well on its way to recovery, as Yatra Online posted a 61% sequential increase in revenue in the December quarter. Hotel bookings grew 400% sequentially. Relying on IMF’s prediction that India’s economy will grow by 11.5% in 2021, Dhruv Shingri, Yatra’s co-founder and CEO, said that the company was anticipating travel to grow at about 1.5 times India’s GDP as vaccination becomes more prevalent. “If India follows the path of what many developed countries have done, we can expect to see growth to inflect for travel at the levels even beyond pre-COVID,” Singri said during the company’s Q3FY21 earnings call on February 4. In terms of capacity, the company said it was back to approximately 80% of pre-COVID levels. Passenger load factors improved gradually and are currently between 70%-72% of pre-CIVID levels. “We believe the capacity could reach close to 100% of pre-COVID levels by the middle of this calendar year,” Shingri said. Key takeaways from earnings call International travel still has uncertainties: Recovery on the International travel front remains “muted,” per Shingri. “This is impacted by border restrictions based on COVID case counts in various countries. Airlines continue to operate under air bubble agreements between countries. We expect the recovery in international to continue to be more gradual and largely dependent on the rate of global vaccinations,” he said. “International, unfortunately, will have these fits and spurts, given what's happening in different countries,” he added. Domestic travel market going strong: The domestic aviation market in…
