Delhi Airport expects 73% decline in traffic | Economic Times

NEW DELHI: IGI Airport is staring at a 73% fall in traffic this financial year with an expected total passenger number of 1.8 crore — down from 6.7 crore in the April 2019-March 2020 period. Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), which manages Indira Gandhi International Airport, now estimates the post-Covid recovery in air travel only by the financial year 2023-24, when it expects 7.3 crore flyers. DIAL has submitted its revised passenger numbers to Airports Economic Regulatory Authority in response to a consultation paper issued by the latter for determining tariff for April 2019-March 2024. While international passengers in 2020-21 (April to March) are expected to be 33 lakh — down 82% from 1.7 crore in the previous fiscal, the domestic count is likely to hover around 1.5 crore — a fall of 70% from almost 5 crore in 2019-20. One of IGIA’s three runways is being used as a storage for grounded planes since March. The sharp fall has had a crippling effect on the aviation industry’s fortunes, with many players now struggling to survive. DIAL itself is in the midst of implementing a Rs 8,632-crore infrastructure upgrade of laying the fourth runway, expanding Terminal 1, and constructing an elevated taxiway, among others. According to the data of Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the pandemic-struck January-July has seen 3.7 crore domestic flyers across the country, 55% less than 8.2 crore in the same period last year.As the “business impact of Covid”, the operator of India’s busiest airport has told AERA, “IGI Airport is being severely impacted in terms of scale of business/traffic by the outbreak of Covid pandemic globally… Traffic had come to a total standstill”. Even after the restrictions have been eased from May 25, DIAL said “the demand as seen in the recent past has been highly muted. The plight of international flights is not known”.With constraints on disposable income, “it may also be perused that the spend on travel would be much less even after the lifting of restrictions on air travel. The intensity and duration of impact of Covid-19 on the travel industry is predicted to be far deeper and longer”, the operator pointed out. All scheduled flights were suspended in the last week of March in India. While domestic operations have since been allowed to resume, international flights are taking place under the special arrangements of air bubbles the government is creating with some countries to ensure continuity of travel till regular flights restart.