Covid-19 effect: Passenger traffic at Mumbai airport dipped by 73% last year

In the pre-Covid days, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Iinternational Airport got an average of 42,000 international passengers per day but this number fell to 18,000 by mid-March last year. Domestic traffic too dropped by 15-20%.

The Covid-19 pandemic that resulted in a complete shutdown of all air services for two months last year caused a steep fall in numbers at the country’s second largest airport, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA), as per Airports Authority of India (AAI) data.

File photo of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. (Abhijit Bhatlekar/ Mint)

In the period between January-December 2020, passenger traffic dipped a massive 73% as compared to 2019. Passenger traffic last year was 8,016,456 against 29,521,918 in 2019, revealed the AAI data.

In the pre-Covid days, CSMIA got an average of 42,000 international passengers per day but this number fell to 18,000 by mid-March last year. Domestic traffic too dropped by 15-20%.

Experts believe that it will take some time before air traffic can reach its pre-Covid levels. CS Subbiah, former chief executive officer of Alliance Air, said, “How can the air traffic reach pre-Covid levels when we are not even allowing flights to operate at their full capacity? (It won’t happen) unless state governments ease their respective restrictions, and more people are successfully vaccinated. International flights majorly contribute to passenger traffic; hence air traffic and passenger footfall will significantly increase with opening of the international borders.”

However, the pandemic is not the only factor for lower number of passengers at the city airport. A drop in footfall is also being attributed to the now-defunct Jet Airways suspending its flight operations. The footfall at CSMIA dropped to 95,000, 27% lower than the average daily footfall at the city airport then, when Jet flights were suspended, shows data.