BHUBANESWAR: The aviation industry on the path of revival after the first wave of Covid-19 is once again in distress as is evident from the number of flights arriving at and departing from the Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) here.
The number of flights that arrived and departed from the airport went down from 1,934 in March to 1,598 in April this year. Around 67,656 passengers had boarded flights from BPIA and 77,314 arrived in the city in April. However, the number was much higher in March as 1,23,377 passengers had boarded flights and 97,393 arrived at the city airport.
While operations are continuing from BPIA to New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Prayagraj, Varanasi and Surat, flights from the city to Chennai, Ahmedabad and Patna have been suspended due to minimum bookings. “On an average, at least 33 flights were operating everyday from BPIA with a footfall of over 7,000 earlier this year. In normal circumstances, we handle over 40 flights with average passenger turnout of 11,000 per day,” said a BPIA official.
Around 11 flights arrived at BPIA from cities like New Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Varanasi and Surat and as many departed on Wednesday. As many as 825 passengers arrived in Bhubaneswar and only 348 boarded flights from BPIA to various cities during the period.
Jharsuguda’s Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Airport is also witnessing a reduction in flight operations and passenger footfall since April. “In March, there were 440 scheduled domestic flight arrivals and departures and this reduced to 334 in April. There is a drastic reduction in flight operations in May and likely arrivals and departures will not exceed 100 by the end of this month,” said a senior official of VSS. On an average, VSS has 10 scheduled domestic flight arrivals and as many departures on May 13 but only one aircraft arrived from New Delhi and returned on the day.