Covid blow: Domestic air travellers drop by over half in 2020 over 2019
NEW DELHI: Covid has pushed back India’s domestic aviation by almost seven years. The pandemic 2020 saw 6.3 crore domestic air passengers, a sharp 56.3% less than 14.4 crore in 2019, according to DGCA data. Such numbers were last seen in 2013 and 2014 with 6.1 crore and 6.7 crore domestic flyers, respectively.
Scheduled domestic flights were suspended from March 25 to May 25, 2020, as part of the lockdown. So the 6.3 crore people flew within the country in the remaining 10 months with over half (3.3 crore) doing so in January-March and just over 3 crore in May-December period (April saw no scheduled domestic flights).
The impact on international air travel will be more severe and longer-lasting as regular flights remain suspended since last March and special arrangement operations to and from some countries are happening under air bubbles and Vande Bharat Mission. Rating agency ICRA expects FY2021 international passenger traffic for Indian carriers to witness a YoY decline of 88-89%.
