Passengers flying out of Chennai outnumbered those arriving at the city airport in the first week after domestic flight services resumed amid the lockdown.
Data showed that only 7,745 passengers arrived in the city last week (May 25 to 31), whereas around twice the number - 14,843 – flew out of Chennai during the period. In total, only 22,588 passengers have travelled through the airport in the last one week. Prior to the lockdown, the number of passengers taking domestic flights was around 18,000-20,000 a day.
Since the resumption of domestic flight services, airlines including IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India and TruJet have been running services to various destinations like Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram and Visakhapatnam.
The airport has been handling a mere 40-50 flights a day, compared to 500 in pre-COVID-19 times. On the first day (May 25) of resumption of services, the airport saw 852 incoming and 1,805 outgoing passengers.
Officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said that on an average, 1,000 people were landing at the airport and nearly 2,000 flying out of the city. “Though people have been coming here from various cities, we have noticed that a majority of them are from Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. As far as departures are concerned, passengers are travelling to Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Guwahati and Visakhapatnam,” an official said.
AAI officials said there will be a spike in the number of passengers only when the cap on arrivals is lifted in the coming weeks. “But for us to witness normal passenger traffic, it may take 10-12 months or even more. It will also depend on when international flights resume operations from the city,” an official said.