New Delhi, May 17: Owing to COVID-19 induced restrictions and apprehensions number of air travelers on domestic routes dropped more than 63 per cent in May in comparison to Apr 2021.
According to data released by Director General of Civil Aviation on Thursday, 21.15 lakh domestic passengers flew in May 2021 which is 63.06 per cent less than April figure of 57.25 lakh. Also this is the lowest number in ten months since July 2020.
Second wave of COVID-19 swept almost entire country in May with number of new cases surpassing four lakh a day during peak. Majority of States had put partial or complete lock-down measures in place. Though air travel was not banned, many states required strict conditions to be fulfilled by in coming passengers.
Scheduled passenger flights were completely banned for first 24 days in May 2020. After a ban of two months flights were resumed on May 25, 2020. Number passengers kept on increasing up till February this year. After that it has dropped for next three months in a row up to May.
DGCA data showed a decline in passenger load factor (PLF) for almost every airlines in May 2021. PLF is the average ratio of seats filled in a flight. Budget private carrier Spice Jet registered highest PLF of 64 per cent against 70.8 per cent in April this year. Go Air was next with 63.3 per cent PLF followed by IndiGo (51.2 per cent), Air Asia India (44.4 per cent), Star Air (41.2 per cent), Vistara (40.9 per cent) and Air India (39.3 per cent) respectively.
Due to low occupancy airlines cancelled and merged many flights as 67.9 per cent cancellation were due to commercial reasons. Weather was second major cause of cancellation with 17 per cent contribution.
Air Taxi cancelled 61.29 per cent of its scheduled flights. Public carrier Air India cancelled its 16.34 per cent flights, Vistara 9.29 per cent, Air Asia India, 3.80 per cent, flybig 3.57 per cent, IndiGo 3.51 per cent, Spice Jet 1.81 per cent and True Jet cancelled 1.64 per cent.
