Indian air traffic down 33% in March, with zero passengers in last six days

Passenger numbers for Indian airlines fell 33 per cent in March, compared to the corresponding period last year. From March 24 midnight, India had announced a nationwide lockdown — one of the harshest measures declared by any government across the world — to contain the spread of novel coronavirus.

Airlines had zero passengers for the last six days in March. The data was released by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday evening.

In March, airlines flew 7.8 million passengers, against 11.5 million in the same month last year.

“Domestic operations were closed for about seven days. By the second half of March, we had also banned international flights. This had a cascading impact on connecting domestic flights as well,” said DGCA chief Arun Kumar.