Terrific Thursday as airlines fly over 398,000 passengers over long weekend

This is the highest single day passenger traffic since resumption of air travel in May 2020

Domestic airlines carried a record 393,838 passengers on 2,866 flights on Thursday, cashing in on long weekend travel demand. This is the highest single-day passenger traffic since air travel resumed in May 2020.

Prior to this, the highest number of passengers carried on a single day was 393,245 on November 21. In February 2020, airlines carried around 425,000 passengers daily.

A drop in the number of Covid-19 cases, relaxation in restrictions, and the beginning of school and college holidays in some parts of the country are contributing to the demand recovery. The long weekend resulted in a surge in traffic as airlines witnessed high loads both on flights to popular leisure destinations such as Goa and Srinagar and also on metro to metro flights.

“Airlines have witnessed a sudden spike in load factors and overall passenger movements will continue to remain high all through the weekend,” said a Cleartrip spokesperson. Delhi, Bengaluru, Goa, Mumbai, Srinagar, Hyderabad, Chennai, Guwahati, and Jaipur were preferred destinations, according to the Cleartrip’s booking data.

According to civil aviation ministry data, airlines recorded load factors of 83 per cent to 90 per cent on Thursday.

“Domestic airlines saw a traffic recovery in the last fortnight of March with average daily passengers around 340,000. But then the demand plateaued and the passenger count declined in the first 10 days of April to around 320,000. We hope the demand continues to sustain in May,” said a senior executive of a private airline.

While the leisure and visiting family relatives segment has recovered, corporate traffic is still below pre-pandemic time. A challenge for airlines is to balance the demand with rising input costs. Fuel price remains a cause for concern and airlines hiked fare by 15 per cent in mid-March.

“I believe airlines will continue to hold on to fares and not increase rates immediately so as not to disturb the demand,” said Ameya Joshi, founder of aviation blog Network Thoughts.