Sunday, July 05, 2020

IndiGo Expects Air Traffic to Return to Normal in 5 Months, Says There is 'Sustained Demand'

Despite Covid-19 induced economic challenges, a senior executive of airline major IndiGo estimates a rebound in domestic passenger traffic within the next 5 months. Accordingly, the airline's Chief Commercial Officer, William Boulter is encouraged by the fact that demand has sustained since the restart of operations on May 25.

Passenger air services were suspended on March 25 due to the nationwide lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19. Presently, airlines are only allowed to deploy 45 per cent of their total capacity to service domestic routes. Even with capped capacity, domestic airlines were able to ferry around two million passengers during the past one month.

"People travel for a number of different reasons, many of which can be seen as 'essential'," Boulter told IANS.

"The encouraging aspect right now is that demand is sustained over the past weeks since the restart, it was not a case of a few days' pent up demand. Passengers are moving over all the routes we are operating, there is no particular pattern between metros or non-metros."

The airline offers close to 350 commercial flights daily, due to the capped capacity norms.

At present, the aviation sector suffers from the fallout of Covid-19 outbreak and the consequent national lockdown which was implemented to curb the pandemic. Besides, the outbreak has induced economic contraction and heavily impacted the travel industry. Lately, national and international monetary agencies have cited a range of negative 4.5 to 5 per cent contractions in India's GDP growth rate.

The sector is a high-frequency indicator of a country's economic growth.
05/07/20 News18.com
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