Delhi: Not enough flyers, T2 may go off radar

NEW DELHI: Operations from Indira Gandhi International Airport’s terminal 2 (T2) may be suspended from next Monday (May 10) as passenger numbers have nosedived during the uncontrolled Covid surge. With almost 20 countries imposing travel restrictions from India in the past few days, some even stopping flights here, the current amount of domestic-cum-international traffic is down to a level that can be handled by T3 alone — like last year.
People in the know say Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) will hold consultations with airlines in the next two-three days. “Most probably we will suspend T2 operations from next Monday onwards. T3 is more than sufficient for the current traffic,” said sources.
No comments were received from DIAL yet.
Mumbai airport is also handling all passenger flights from one terminal for the same reason.
Delhi Airport’s T2 was reopened for domestic flights last October when domestic air travel had started picking up after being allowed to resume in May-end. T1 is yet to reopen since last March.
The airport was seeing an average of about 1.15-1.2 lakh passengers (domestic and international, both arriving and departing) in past couple of months, before the current surge. Now its footfall have also fallen. The reason: domestic travel has witnessed a sharp drop due to testing requirements by various states. And in the last 10 days, about 20 countries have imposed travel restrictions on India, including suspending flights from here.
The ongoing surge has led to a strong sense of déjà vu among both airlines and airport operators. It hit just when things were looking up. Delhi Airport, for instance, was handling almost 1.1 lakh domestic and 20,000 international passengers (arrivals plus departures) on a daily basis this February, say sources. This was the highest figure since last March. DIAL was now hoping to reopen T1 for operations.
Scheduled domestic flights restarted on May 25, 2020, with about 30,000 passengers travelling (across the country) on Day 1. This number kept growing as things improved. March 27, 2021, for instance, saw 2.8 lakh domestic passengers on 2,336 flights. This number fell to 1.3 lakh domestic passengers on April 30, according to aviation ministry’s tweets. The second surge has seen passenger numbers crash.
“A majority of Indian carriers are cash-strapped and are struggling to survive. If this ongoing torrid Covid wave does not end soon, we may see more casualties in the aviation space. Airlines can cut costs by reducing fleet. Airports don’t have that kind of adaptability with the infra that has been created,” said an aviation insider.