Flights see passengers down to tenth of February peak

In just about three months since the second surge of Covid-19 hit India, the number of passengers carried by domestic airlines has sharply plunged — on May 25, about 39,000 passengers took a flight compared with the peak of about 3 lakh a day in February.

It was on May 25 last year that domestic flights resumed services in 2020 after being shut down for two months following the announcement of a national lockdown. On that day, domestic airlines had carried 30,000 passengers, almost similar to the number of passengers carried on May 25 this year.

The sharp plunge in air passenger traffic prompted the government on Friday to reduce the number of flights that airlines could operate on domestic routes.