CHENNAI: The lockdown announcement in Mumbai has started to affect patronage of flights on Chennai-Mumbai route.
However, airlines have not reduced the one-way fare which is in the range of Rs 4,600 to Rs 5,000 for travel till the end of the month, probably hoping to cash in on the travellers who will be flying to Mumbai to board international flights.
As rising Covid-19 cases in Mumbai have made people defer travel unless they are returning home to be with family, airlines have already cut down four flights between Chennai and Mumbai.
There were 12 arrivals and as many departures every day last week but this has been reduced to 10 arrivals and 10 departures this week. "The number of passengers was reducing in the last few days. Airlines have combined the flights to ensure that the existing services have at least 100 passengers per flight," said an airline official.
Sources said that the lockdown has come at a time when domestic business travel was reviving between the cities.
"This has now been affected. Those who were planning to travel for business and trade and for official meetings have started to cancel schedules. People who want to travel for emergency and those who want to board international flights from Mumbai will only be travelling on the coming days. Those who might have already travelled, without knowing that there will be a lockdown, may return in the next few days. After that there will be a slump in the number of passengers," said Basheer Ahemed of Metro Travels.
"We have to monitor the reaction of the transit passengers too. There is a fear that they too may shift transit from Mumbai to Delhi or some other cities. But cases are high in Delhi too," said Ahmed.
Mumbai is the most popular route from Chennai after Delhi. The total number of flights handled by the airport has reduced in the last few days while the number of flights are fluctuating day by day.
On April 6, 10,738 passengers arrived by 126 flights and 9,902 flew out on 126 flights. Almost a week later on April 11, 10,727 passengers arrived by 119 flights and 11,570 flew out by 119 flights.