The Delhi international airport will suspend all flight operations at its T2 terminal from midnight on Monday, 17 May. The decision came in the wake of a decline in the number of flights operating as the country finds itself battered by a devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a PTI report, the Delhi airport is currently handling 325 flights per day. The airport used to see around 1,500 flights a day prior to the pandemic.
From Monday midnight, operations for both domestic as well as international flights will be handled by the T3 terminal of the airport.
COVID-19 has been a blow to the aviation sector across the world. During the lockdown in India last year, air travel had been completely suspended for a couple of weeks before resuming in a phased manner.
According to the data provided by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the number of domestic air passengers in the country has dipped to 75,000 from 2.2 lakh per day in the last couple of weeks. At the Delhi airport, the passenger traffic has dropped from approximately 1.15 lakh passengers daily in February to 30,000 currently.
Though the daily reported cases in India have started showing signs of decline, the absolute numbers remain high vis-a-vis other countries. On Monday, the country reported 2,81,386 new COVID-19 cases and 4,106 deaths.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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