For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, over four lakh passengers traveled in domestic flights on Sunday. This is the highest ever after reopening of economy and flight operations.  This is also showing signs of a strong revival of the aviation sector. International traffic has also shown signs of recovery with 1,77,653 airport footfalls, 63,603 departing passengers and 54,050 arriving passengers.

According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation data, the airlines carried 407,975 passengers on 2,838 flights which amount to about 95.5 percent of pre-COVID daily domestic air passenger traffic .The data showed that in the domestic traffic category, there were 7,99,957 airport footfalls, 5,672 aircraft movements, and 3,91,982 arriving passengers. “And we hit the 4 lakh mark for the first time in the last two years! ,” Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia tweeted.   According to experts, this is due to extended weekend and heat wave in north and North West India.

The data showed that around 367, 776 air passengers travelled on 2808 flights on April 16 across the country.

The passenger traffic on local air routes was 7.7 million in February 2022. For March this year, the average daily departures were at around 2,588, higher than the average daily departures of around 2,308 in March 2021, and notably higher compared to around 2,023 in February 2022. In terms of the passenger load factor, IndiGo airlines reported a load factor of 88.2 per cent, Air India's load factor was 89.7 per cent, Spice Jet at 93.7 per cent), Go First at 90.4 per cent), Vistara at 87.2 per cent) and Air Asia India of 87.1 per cent, the data showed. Since the reopening of the economy, the travel and hospitality sector is showing signs of a strong revival. If data issued by travel service providers are to be believed, in recent weeks there has been a strong surge in flight and hotel bookings, with the peak summer holiday season heading towards pre-covid level.

International movement too is recovering with nearly 64, 000 departures from India on 371 flights as on April 15.