Delhi Airport handled over 2.29 million passengers in July 2021. As the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic wanes and the vaccination drive picks up, the air travel segment has shown significant signs of revival. Lifting travel restrictions and ease in capacity limitation to airlines have given the much-needed impetus to air travel. Meanwhile, Delhi Airport has maintained the highest hygiene and safety standards coupled with an innovative contactless check-in to security check procedures for the safety of all passengers.
Delhi Airport has witnessed gradual growth in passenger numbers in recent times. During the first 10 days of August 2021, around 90,000 passengers travelled from the Airport per day. This is five times more than the passenger numbers than the mid-May 2021 figure when Delhi Airport handled roughly 18,000 travellers per day.
Amongst the passengers, Visiting Family and Relatives (VFR) travel has been the highest contributor. There has been a slight pickup in demand on the business travel front, but it is still very much subdued. Leisure travel (tourists) has also picked up, with the opening of tourist destinations across the country. In June 2021, most of those who flew were in the VFR category (48 %), which was followed by Vacationers (25%) and Business travellers (19%). With the arrival of the festive season, the numbers are bound to increase.
Mumbai, Patna, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Leh, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Jammu and Kashmir were the top 10 destinations from Delhi in May and June 2021. With the increase in vaccination pick up across the globe and lower number of Covid cases in India, we may see relaxation in international travel, increasing the number of flights and adding more destinations. We may see adopting a standard travel pass based on vaccination and testing status for International travel in the coming months.
Delhi Airport has proactively taken several measures to ensure a safe and healthy environment in the terminals for the passengers since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes sanitization of terminals, deep and frequent cleaning of high touch areas, common passenger areas like lift, elevators, handrails, glass walls, trolleys, CUSS machines, counters, washrooms, boarding gates etc., using disinfectants and UV light towers. Apart from this, auto-dispensing hand sanitizers and disinfectant mats have been placed at strategic locations, and Bio-Medical Waste Bins deployed at all areas of terminals. Sneeze shields have been installed at all airline counters and CISF checkpoints to minimize the risk of virus transmission.
Delhi Airport has also installed an AI-based passenger tracking system, which alerts terminal staff if it detects any breach of social distancing norms at the entry gates, check-in, security check and security hold areas. Apart from these, Terminal operation staff have been deployed to encourage passengers to abide by COVID protocols. To ensure the air inside the terminal is clean and safe for passengers, fresh air is injected every 10 minutes after passing it through HEPA filters and UV-C lighting, which cleans the air from any kind of pollutants.
During a recent survey on Passenger experience at Delhi Airport, about 99% of flyers felt CONFIDENT of flying from Delhi Airport. Among those who participated in the survey, 51 per cent of passengers felt EXTREMELY CONFIDENT while 48 per cent were FAIRLY CONFIDENT while travelling through Delhi Airport.
Delhi Airport has also been declared the best Airport in India & Central Asia in the Skytrax World Airport Survey 2020, where Delhi Airport was among the very few Airports worldwide to win the Skytrax COVID-19 Airport Excellence Award.
