The Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi will shut operations at T2 terminal due to falling number of flights amid the second wave of coronavirus. The terminal will be shut from Monday midnight. All flights will be handled at the T3 terminal only from Monday midnight, according to Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL. The two airlines -- GoAir and IndiGo -- have been asked to move to T3.
Before the pandemic, the airport used to handle 1,500 flights every day but currently it is handling only 325 flights per day. Average passenger traffic has also fallen from 1.15 lakh per day in February to 30,000 per day right now.
The Civil Aviation Ministry data also shows that in the last few weeks, the number of daily domestic air passengers came down to 75,000 from more than 2.2 lakh.
This is not good news for the aviation sector that has been badly hit due to the pandemic. As cases subsided in the beginning of the year, flight operations had begun reviving too. However, the second wave has dealt another blow to the sector.
DIAL said that moving the airlines to the T3 terminal will help them manage their resources better. It said that airports cannot be immune to the repercussions if airlines suffer due to the pandemic. "The earning of the airports depends on the operations of the flights there. So if the airline companies are facing financial turbulence the airport cannot be immune to that. We were seeing a recovery post lockdown but with the second wave of Covid, we are stuck again," DIAL's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Videh Kumar Jaipuriar told news agency ANI.
International air traffic has also been impacted due to the second wave of COVID.
India reported 2,81,386 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday, the lowest in 27 days. As many as 4,106 fatalities were reported. India's COVID-19 tally stands at 2,49,65,463. The number of active cases has reached 35,16,997.
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