Chennai Airport's Passenger Traffic Goes Down

Vande Bharat scheme and restrictions imposed by the State government due to Covid are said to be the reasons

Chennai airport, which occupied third spot in the country when it comes to passenger traffic, is now in sixth place, apparently due to Covid-19 impact.

Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata are now the top 5 airports in the country in terms of passenger traffic.

Though there has been some increase in the overall passenger traffic at Chennai airport (both domestic and international) after the second lockdown, it is still behind other major airports.

According to Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials, many reasons, from restrictions in flight movement last year to the Vande Bharat scheme to bring back Indians from other countries have led to this.

Also, the State government only allowed a certain number of flights due to Covid and this might have impacted the traffic over several months. Now that restrictions are eased, the situation is expected to improve in the months to come.

As an indication to this, air passenger traffic increased in India for the sixth straight week as a fall in Covid cases and easing of curbs by many States resulted in more passengers taking the flight. The average number of daily fliers rose to 150,000 for the week ended 10 July from 135,000 fliers a week before, ICICI Securities said in a report.