Monday, May 24, 2021

Gujarat: Second corona wave slows passenger movement at airport

Ahmedabad: Apprehensions on travelling triggered by the nastier second wave of Covid-19 infections have impacted passenger movements at the city airport significantly. However, Air passenger traffic remained relatively unaffected in March 2021 with a marginal 6.3% decline year-on-year, according to data by Airports Authority of India (AAI).

Passenger movement including both domestic and international traffic stood at 5.56 lakh passengers in March 2021 against 5.93 lakh during the same month last year. Sources at the city airport estimated that passenger traffic dropped significantly in April as the second wave of Covid-19 infections intensified. AAI, however, has not yet released exact passenger movement data for April this year.

Explaining the trend, a travel industry expert said, “In Gujarat, restrictions mandating a negative RT-PCR report were executed in March-end which did not affect passenger traffic to a great extent. The same in Maharashtra was implemented much earlier. Moreover, due to the second wave, travellers had serious apprehensions to move out of their city unless there was a pressing emergency. Therefore, passenger movement was expected to take a hit.”

The protocol making it compulsory to give RT-PCR negative reports upon arrival in a given state varies from state to state and according to travel industry experts, it was a dampener for impacting travel.

24/05/21 Times of India

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