Global airlines body -- International Air Transport Association (IATA) has said Passenger traffic at airports in tier 2 and 3 cities of the India is higher than pre-COVID levels. Country director of IATA -- Amitabh Khosla said ‘In domestic, we have seen a strong expansion in new destinations and the deployment of new flights.Unused and under utilised airports in India are starting to see additional passenger activity.’
India resumed its scheduled domestic passenger flights on May 25, 2020 after keeping them suspended for a period of two months due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Khosla said ‘airline networks themselves are in the state of transition. Post restart, we have seen a growing number of tier-2 and tier-3 cities where the traffic at the airports is higher than it was during the pre-COVID levels.’
The IATA has around 290 airlines as its members. Khosla said airlines are expected to get one-third of the revenues from air cargo this year as compared to 12 per cent in 2019. He mentioned while global passenger traffic is expected to come to pre-pandemic level only in 2024, the air cargo traffic is expected to reach pre-COVID level by March 2020.
Schedule international passenger flights have been suspended in India since March 23, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, special international flights have been operating since May last year under Vande Bharat Mission and air bubble arrangements found with various countries.
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