Online travel firms see 40% demand revival in flight bookings

BENGALURU: Online travel aggregators (OTA) are seeing a 30-40% revival in demand, with only a few firms booking over 5,000 air tickets on a daily basis, as domestic flights try to resume operations in a staggered manner after a two-month break.

However, a sizeable chunk of these flight bookings are also getting cancelled by airline operators, affecting revenues of OTAs. The government had imposed a nationwide lockdown starting 25 March, which was extended til May. Operations of all domestic and international flights were temporarily suspended during this period, causing much distress to online travel firms who make a large chunk of their sales from airline ticketing. Domestic flights resumed from 25 May.

OTAs are now betting on reopening of domestic tourism and intrastate leisure travel to increase sales on their platforms.