Will reach pre-Covid-19 levels by year-end: Civil aviation minister

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri Saturday said domestic passenger traffic could reach the pre-COVID level by the end of current year.

He said the daily domestic traffic has reached 1.76 lakh passengers from 30,000 passengers when the civil aviation operations resumed on May 25 following a two-month gap due to the pandemic.

On May 25, we resumed civil aviation operations and at that time, there were around 30,000 passengers. Today, I received data as per which there were 1.76 lakh passengers yesterday. We are going to achieve almost the pre-COVID level during the period between Diwali and the end of this year, said Puri.

He also said that a meeting of airlines, Airport Authority of India and other stakeholders would be called and to discuss how more flights can be introduced from Chandigarh city.

"We will see to increase connectivity from Chandigarh within our existing system, he said.