The Airports Authority of India (AAI) had to wait for a long time before its request for operating 100 arrival flights from other States was approved. Finally, the announcement came last week, much to its relief. But there has been only a marginal increase in the flight movements so far.
For instance, there were only 58 arrival and 58 departure flights on Tuesday and 64 arrival and 64 departure flights on Wednesday.
The AAI is hopeful that in a week’s time the numbers would touch 200 flights, both arrival and departures, sources said. One of the primary reasons for this, there has been no uptick in the demand for seats, sources said.
“We don’t see tourists or the entire section of business travellers back to taking flights yet. Gradually, there are people willing to travel but it is going to take time because many of them still have apprehensions,” a source said.
There has been an incremental rise in the number of passengers but it was far from pre-COVID-19 level.
Right now, there are about 12,000-13,000 passengers a day travelling but early this year, the airport handled about 35,000 passengers a day with nearly 450-500 flight movements.
Low occupancy
Sources said, in some flights, the number of passengers is still dismal. Every day, in some flights, there are only about 15 to 20 passengers. A few days ago, in a flight to Tiruchi, there were six passengers in all. But officials of the AAI said it was up to to them to fix the schedules and logistics.