According to the aviation consultancy firm Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), Mumbai’s airport could be the last to go back to pre-COVID passenger traffic among the country’s major airports. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a 66 per cent reduction in passenger traffic across India during 2020-21 to 115 million passengers. This is a 13 year low in terms of passengers.
Meanwhile, Hyderabad is expected to recover almost near pre-COVID traffic at -31.3 per cent. In contrast, Mumbai’s will be the slowest at -52.3 per cent as per the CAPA Advisory India Airport Outlook FY2022. The model went on to show that Mumbai’s recovery is outpaced by other metro airports in India.
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Despite the poor outlook, CAPA said that Mumbai Airport’s traffic might increase during the year. Data from the Airports Authority of India shows that the Delhi airport managed 5 million passengers in the April-June timeframe. Mumbai and Bengaluru saw around 2 million passengers each during the same period.
By losing nearly 3.5 to 4.5 million passengers over one year, Mumbai saw the most significant decline among metro airports at 76 per cent. Delhi and Bengaluru witnessed a decline of 66 per cent each.
CAPA went on to say that the overall passenger traffic may have been higher by at least 7 to 10 million had there not been frequent changes to aviation guidelines. Overall, India’s domestic traffic fell by 61.8 per cent to 105 million passengers since the pandemic.
International traffic was heavily impacted, falling by up to 84.8 per cent to just 10.1 million passengers. This was the lowest passenger traffic in around 30 years.
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