Hyderabad: Around 50 domestic flights operating out of Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport were cancelled on 8 May. This marks the third consecutive day of last-minute ticket cancellations while the civil aviation sector stares at another crisis.
According to officials, a majority of flights cancelled were scheduled to arrive from or depart to Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Goa. Surge of COVID cases in Telangana, lockdown imposed by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and Delhi’s mandatory quarantine and uncertainty have resulted in the cancellation, officials said. Also, the misreporting on the N440K strain saying it was 15 times more infectious has led to nationwide panic.
According to statistics, on 6 May over 33 flights were cancelled and on 7 May it was 30 flights while 8 May saw the highest number of cancellations with 50 flights being cancelled at the airport. In a span of three days, operations of 113 flights have been hit.
On average, close to 350 domestic flights operate in and out of Hyderabad airport daily. However, ever since the number of infections touched new peaks in Telangana, the number of flight cancellations has increased. This has severely impacted the aviation sector.
Source : News meter