3-lakh flew on Sunday, highest since curbs lifted: Puri

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, March 1

India’s domestic aviation sector has appeared to be on a path of recovery, as the government data revealed that 3,13,668 passengers on February 28, the highest since the resumption of flight operations on May 25 last year, took the air route to reach to their destination within the country.

“Number of domestic passengers on February 28 rose to 3,13,668 on 2,353 flights, which is the highest since resumption of domestic flights on May 25, 2020, ” Minister for Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri said. He went on to add that the total number of footfalls on airports was 6,17,824.

In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, domestic flight operations were ceased with effect from midnight of March 24, 2020, and the operations resumed after two months on May 25.

Information and Credit Rating Agency ICRA also indicated that with the increase in the domestic airlines capacity to 80 per cent of pre-covid levels in December 2020 from 33 per cent in May 2020, the recovery in the domestic aircraft traffic has been gradual and has reached to 73 per cent of the previous year’s level in January 2021.

“The passenger traffic recovery in recent months, which reached 15.2 million in January 2021, is supported by increase in capacity of airlines, travel during festive and wedding season,” the agency said in an official statement.

“We expect passenger traffic to grow by around 133 per cent in FY2022 and 14 per cent in FY2023 after a contraction of 63 per cent in FY2021,” ICRA vice president Anupama Arora said.