Domestic air passenger traffic nosedives to 1.92 million in May: Report

Domestic air traffic nosedived to 19.20 lakh passengers in May from around 57.3 lakh in April, registering a sharp 65-67 per cent month-on-month contraction on account of the second wave of the pandemic, a report said on Thursday.

With such a sharp fall, the domestic passenger traffic reached lower than the June-July 2020 levels, rating agency Icra said.

At the same time, the airlines' capacity deployment for May was lower by around 54-55 per cent 27,700 departures, compared to about 60,300 departures in April this year, indicating the lower demand stemming from averseness of consumers to travel due to the rise in infections, it said.

For May 2021, the average daily departures were around 900, significantly lower than around 2,000 in April 2021. The average number of passengers per flight during May was 72, against an average of 93 passengers per flight in April 2021, said Kinjal Shah, Vice President and Co-Group Head at Icra.

The gradual decline depicts the continuing stress on ..