Domestic passenger count marking revival of aviation sector: Min
MUMBAI : Civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Saturday said that domestic air traffic was reaching the pre-covid levels. According to Puri, 290,518 passengers travelled by 2,360 flights on Friday. Puri praised the aviation sector for playing a key role in transporting essential and medical supplies as part of efforts against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The aviation minister tweeted, “2,90,518 passengers on 2,360 flights on 19 Feb is within touching distance of PRE-COVID numbers & marks revival of the domestic sector. From transporting essential & medical supplies, to movement of vaccines, civil aviation sector plays a key role in efforts against COVID19 (sic).”
His tweet further revealed that a total of 581,306 passenger footfall and 4,723 flight movements were witnessed on Friday alone.
In a consultative committee’s meeting of the ministry held on Thursday, Puri said domestic air traffic is increasing day-by-day and has now reached about three lakh passengers a day.
The minister had also said that with domestic air traffic expected to increase further in the summer season, the government may remove the fare band, apart from lifting other restrictions.
The aviation industry has been one of the severely affected sectors owing to the lockdown last year. Following the Covid-19 outbreak, India’s domestic passenger traffic slipped to a sevenyear low in 2020 due to a complete halt in air travel for two months.
Commercial passenger flights resumed operations from May 25 with restricted capacity on local routes (45% between June and September and 80% from December). Domestic air travel has recorded an upward trend since October with a month-onmonth increase in the number of passengers taking to the Indian skies.
According to the January traffic report released by civil aviation regulator Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday, 7,734,000 passengers flew last month to destinations across the country. The number of fliers has progressively increased from 5,271,000 in October and 6,334,000 in November.
However, as the international borders remain to be closed, the government has been operating special flights under their Vande Bharat Mission and air bubble agreements.