Civil Aviation Ministry sees 20% drop in domestic air traffic

Hyderabad: The coronavirus outbreak has resulted in a drop of 20 per cent in domestic air traffic, according to Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister for Civil Aviation. However, the minister assured that India will overcome the challenge and achieve a significant growth in the civil aviation sector.

The civil aviation minister on Saturday said the situation may cause some economic disadvantage, but it was only a passing phase. Exuding confidence on future growth prospects, the minister said that India would be in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise from the global challenge. The civil aviation minister took part in the ongoing event 'Wings India 2020,' here on Saturday.

Shrugging off the impact of coronavirus, the minister said: "We have only 80 positive cases in India, which has 1.30 billion people. Many of them are going to be okay, we may add some, but looking at that perspective we will not only come the challenge, but I see robust and vibrant growth in civil aviation sector."

Puri said India was well on course to become third largest civil aviation market. While the number of air passengers handling by the country are likely to go up from current 345 million passengers per annum to one billion by 2030.

He further added that with the kind of penetration and double-digit growth in spite of all the problems India would there much before 2030. He said the country might even reach that number by 2024-25.

Listing out the steps taken to screen the passengers since the outbreak of coronavirus in China, he said the India airports constitute a global benchmark on how airports should work in a situation like this.

Puri said the country had so far screened 10,876 flights coming in from outside and many of them were wide-bodied aircraft. As many as 11,71,061 passengers were screened and 3,225 passengers required further screening.