New Delhi: The air passenger load factor in India may once again go down in the coming days due to fresh spurt in coronavirus cases and travel restrictions imposed by several states -- like making Covid test report mandatory.
"Travel restrictions have again impacted the bookings and the decrease in domestic passenger load factor will be reflected in the next week. We are noticing a drop in the number of bookings as a sequence of the regulations mandating negative Covid-19 tests for entering few states," said an airline official on the condition of anonymity.
Stating that the rising Covid-19 cases in the last week are a threat to air traffic, a report by the ICICI securities on the Civil aviation said that a total of 2,85,000 people chose to fly each day in the week ended February 27, falling from 300,000 per day in the week ending February 20.
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According to the data provided by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the number of domestic passengers on February 28, 2021, rose to 3,13,668 while on the next day i.e. on March 1, 2021, the number of passengers slowed down to 2,77,708.
However, a GoAir spokesperson said that the number of bookings is going good and the overall situation looks more promising.
"Given that the domestic recovery is hampered by sluggish demand from leisure and business travel and the recovery in international travel is contingent on various government measures for control of Covid amid a surge of variants as well as the success of mass vaccination, the domestic traffic is likely to reach pre-Covid levels in FY2023 and international in FY2024," said ICRA vice president Anupama Jha in a statement.
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Earlier, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said in the parliament that the price bands are expected to be done away with once flight services reach pre-Covid-19 levels.
To recall, the government had said a price band on airfare with upper and lower caps, after resuming the domestic air travel across the country from May 25, 2020, after a gap of two months due to the Covid-19 induced travel restrictions.
