New Delhi: A report by Times of India has noted how, for the first time since 2008, India’s busiest airports at Delhi and Mumbai have seen a dip in the passenger count in 2019, compared to 2018.
“While Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport saw fewer domestic passengers, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) registered a fall in both domestic and international carriage,” says the report, which pegs the reason behind the drop in passengers to the slump in the economy and the collapse of Jet Airways.
Several other factors played a role, like IndiGo and GoAir engine troubles for the Airbus A320 Neos, SpiceJet grounding the Boeing 737 Max and the closure of Pakistani airspace due to the tensions between the two countries in early 2019.
IGI, noted the report, was 2.6% short of the nearly seven crore passenger mark it hit in 2018.
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The newspaper has published the report based on provisional data released by the Delhi International Airport Limited. While Delhi saw a 0.6% rise in international flyers, domestic flyers fell 6%.
“In the case of the Mumbai airport, the percentage fell 3.4% from 3.5 crore domestic passengers in 2018 to 3.38 crore in 2019. The decline was of 7% in international flyers from 1.4 crore in 2018 to 1.3 crore in 2019,” a report on data obtained from the Mumbai International Airport Limited, by Moneycontrol, said.
While the two airports did see a slump in the passenger count, the country as a whole did not note a fall in air passengers, the TOI report said, adding that a more complete picture will be available once the Directorate General of Civil Aviation releases its figures.