MUMBAI: With a spike in air traffic on non-metro air routes during the pandemic, this year for every two passengers who flew between Mumbai and Delhi, one flew to/ from Goa—up from three for Delhi, one for Goa.
In 2019, for every 10 passengers who flew between Mumbai and other top four metros-–Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai (total 1.5 crore)—four flew between Mumbai and the top four non-metros back then — Goa, Ahmedabad, Kochi and Jaipur (total 60 lakh).
In 2020, that gap started reducing and this year, for every two passengers who flew between Mumbai and the two four metros (45 lakh passengers), more than one flew between the city and the top four non-metros (25 lakh).
While the top four metro routes out of Mumbai remain the same, there has been a change of order on the non-metro routes. In 2020, Varanasi took the number three spot— after Goa and Ahmedabad—replacing Kochi, while in 2021, Nagpur took the third spot and Varanasi the fourth.
A notable change this year has been that Mumbai-Varanasi flights had 26% more passengers than those arriving from Varanasi—2.4 lakh flyers boarded flights to Varanasi, but only 1.85 lakh returned between January and November 15—shows the data shared by Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL).
For all other major metro and non-metro routes out of Mumbai, the percentage difference between arrival and departure passengers is in single digits.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/winds-change-more-fly-to-non-metros-from-mumbai/articleshow/87972337.cms
