Domestic air passenger traffic reaches more than half of pre-Covid19 level, says MOCA data

When airlines resumed services from May onwards after a hiatus of two months, there were only 30,000 passengers on the first day. But, the reports released by central government and ICRA have revealed that approaching the ‘new normal’, air passengers are growing rapidly.

The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) in a statement said that India’s domestic passenger traffic has reached more than half of pre-Covid19 pandemic level operations with the number of daily air travellers crossing over two lakh in November. “We have crossed more than half of the normal operations and at a very fast rate we are approaching the normal,” expressed Pradeep Singh Kharola, Secretary, MOCA.

As per the data released by ICRA, the Indian civil aviation industry reported recovery in October over September with a sequential growth of 33% to around 52 lakh passengers. Also, the capacity is expected to go up between 70% and 75% in the coming days in view of the festive season, the government had said.

This year, in June, the Ministry had permitted increasing the capacity to 45% with effect from June 27 from a maximum of one-third at the time of resumption of domestic flights from May 25, which was further scaled up to 60% from September 2.