Around 65% of the 6,000 travellers who took part in a survey by Vistara said they felt comfortable planning their travel within the next six months. However, the respondents also highlighted that they feared contracting Covid-19 during the travel, flouting of protocols by fellow passengers and high air fares in the survey.
The airline’s survey, which included Club Vistara members from all tier levels as well as non-members, revealed that more people (35%) will undertake travel for business instead of visiting friends, relatives 25%) or for leisure.
Vistara highlighted that 57% of the Club Vistara elite (platinum and gold tier) members said they would fly in the next one month.
The survey recorded that 68% respondents on the domestic sector and 74% on the international sector indicated that they are either likely to maintain the frequency of their business travel as they did in the previous year or take more flights, while the remaining said they will reduce the trips as compared to 2019.
For leisure travel or visiting friends and relatives, 60% respondents said they will either maintain or increase the frequency in the domestic sector, while the same applied to 65% in the international sector - the rest are likely to reduce as against 2019.
Officials at Vistara said 20% respondents planned to take their next flight to a destination outside of India. Singapore, United Kingdom and Dubai were most preferred on the list for international travel followed by the United States and Thailand.
{{/usCountry}}Officials at Vistara said 20% respondents planned to take their next flight to a destination outside of India. Singapore, United Kingdom and Dubai were most preferred on the list for international travel followed by the United States and Thailand.
{{/usCountry}}“Three of these five international destinations are already part of Vistara’s international network, which the airline plans to expand to other countries in and outside the continent as it inducts new narrow-body and wide-body aircraft,” said Vinod Kannan, chief technical officer, Vistara.
A recent survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association of world’s airlines in 11 countries, including India, had revealed that while more than 50% air travellers said they would resume air travel only after waiting for at least six months, 95% respondents said that they would return to air travel in a year.
Kapil Kaul,chief executive officer of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) said, “As per CAPA research, we will see a gradual but slow recovery beginning from third quarter of the year in domestic sector but international sector will be seen possibly by December- subject to infection curve is flattened by September. CAPA expects continuing work from home leading later to a hybrid resumption.”