The second wave of Coronavirus has adversely impacted the air travel industry. Scared of getting infected, passengers are avoiding air travel as much as possible. The number of air passengers from Jharsuguda to other parts of the country has drastically gone down these days due to lockdowns imposed in many States in the country. 

Last year in April, all flights from the Jharsuguda airport to other parts of the country were cancelled after the nationwide lockdown; however, some flights resumed operations during May.

From 1,069 passengers who travelled from Jharsuguda airport in May last year, the number of passengers increased to 8,541 by June through 253 Jharsuguda-bound flights, officials said. Sources said with the number of cases dropping significantly, 322 flights resumed from Jharsuguda Airport in July, 282 in August, 304 in September, 338 in October, with a proportional increase in passengers accordingly.

Substantial improvement in the number of passengers was noticed in January and February 2021, with 28,239 passengers and 34,734 passengers, respectively.  The number of passengers fell in April again due to the rise in Covid cases. While nine flights were operating from Jharsuguda once, it has gone down to five now.

While flights were available from Jharsuguda to Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad and Raipur, now flights to Raipur have been cancelled due to Corona transmission, said Jharsuguda Airport Director Kishore Kumar Senapati. Air travel is likely to be affected the most due to the rapid increase in case loads in the near future, he added.