Aurangabad, Feb 9:
Highest number of passengers travelled by air service from the city was recorded in January in the post-COVID situation.
A total of 22,897 passengers travelled by plane in this month. The figure of passengers has given a boost to airline services.
It may be noted that the flight service was halted across the country in March with the spread of the pandemic virus. The flight service resumed for the city in June 2020 after three months of COVID spread. In the first phase, service started for Delhi while the city reconnected on air map Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad flights.
Now, passengers can go to Kolkata and Chennai and other cities through connecting flights. Air India and IndiGo airlines are offering air service for the city. The figure of passengers was very meagre when the flight service was resumed. The reason is that many passengers preferred to avoid travelling. A total of 489 passengers availed of air service in June 2020 while successive months recorded a gradual increase in their strength.
With the decrease in COVID patients in October, passengers number increased with the new flight service resuming. Director of the airport Dr D G Salvi said that December month recorded 18,000 passengers while in January, it was 22,000. Month-wise number of passengers is as follows; June (489), July (3,499), August (6,176), September (9,363), October (15,059), November (20,438), December (18,640) and January (22,871).