Air travel sees recovery, hotels and travel firms see brisk weekend demand

Air travel appears to be gradually recovering while hotels and travel companies have seen a surge in demand for leisure travel for the long weekends in August.

During the first ten days of August, some 90,000 passengers travelled via Delhi airport daily, which is five times higher than in mid-May, Delhi International Airport Limited said on Friday. In May, the airport handled 18,000 passengers a day, which rose to 62,000 in July.

The growth in passenger traffic comes on the back of a decline in Covid-19 cases and easing of restrictions by states. The number of flights too has risen with the government allowing airlines to operate at 72.5 per cent capacity from August. The cap on the number of flights has been progressively raised from 50 per cent in June to 65 per cent in July.

Various states have also done away with the requirement of a RT-PCR test for fully-vaccinated individuals. The Centre, on Thursday, issued guidelines for rail, bus and air travel to bring uniformity in norms across the country. While the growth is being driven by the visiting family and relatives segment, leisure bookings have picked up this month due to long weekends (August 14-16) and (August 28-30).

OYO has seen 34 per cent week-on-week increase in bookings for Janmashtami weekend starting Saturday with a spike in demand for Mathura and Vrindavan. Most of the bookings are from metros, with Jaipur, Goa, Vishakhapatnam, Kochi and Udaipur topping the list of preferred destinations for this weekend. “We have seen an uptick in demand for local travel wherein consumers are choosing destinations closer to their home or heading to cities like Mathura or Vrindavan,” said Yatish Jain, vice president and chief growth officer of OYO, (India and South East Asia).

“For the Janmastami weekend we have seen a brisk demand primarily from our Gujarat, National Capital Region and North India markets. Besides favourites like Goa, we are also seeing interest in destinations like Udaipur, Mt. Abu, Shimla and Mussorie,” said Rajeev Kale, president and country head (holidays), Thomas Cook India.