Mumbai airport reports significant increase in international passengers

On December 23, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai released figures on international passenger movement from May through November 2020. "While CSMIA catered to over 10,300 passengers across 1,060 flights in May 2020, the airport witnessed the movement of over 1,44,400 passengers across over 2,300 ATMs in November 2020," stated a press note.

Given fears and apprehensions around a new, potentially more transmissible COVID-19 variant, B.1.1.7, which researchers believe began manifesting in southern England as early as September, the international passenger numbers from CSMIA should be taken more seriously. Especially since increased air traffic between two major financial capitals, London and Mumbai, is unavoidable even in one of the leanest years in aviation history.

During the period of May-November 2020, CSMIA has registered Dubai, London-Heathrow, Newark, Doha, and Abu Dhabi as the top 5 destinations for passengers flying from Mumbai. Among these, Dubai emerged as the route with the highest passenger traffic catering to over 2,67,600 passengers; followed by London-Heathrow at over 89,800 passengers, Newark with 80,800 passengers, Doha with 58,200 passengers and Abu Dhabi with 39,400 passengers approximately. Air India was registered as the top airlines catering to London-Heathrow and Newark with a total of over 89,800 and 80,800 passengers respectively. These numbers include repatriation as well as Vande Bharat flights from air bubble agreements

Although CSMIA has numerous preventive SOPs in place, including mandatory RT-PCR checks for arriving and departing international fliers, detecting the passage of the new variant to India from UK returnees who may have tested positive since October is now hard to determine. Since Tuesday night, the government has banned all flights from the UK and people who travelled or transited from the UK in the past 14 days are to declare their travel history, as norms for testing and tracing arrivals from Britain from November 25 now kick in.

The new strain was found in almost 60 per cent of the positive cases reported in London till mid-December. Some 22 people—including six from Delhi—tested positive for the virus on Tuesday in India, their samples sent for genome sequencing. All passengers from the UK will now undergo a spike gene test if they test positive at the RT-PCR stage.

There has been a gradual uptick in the number of international fliers with restrictions being relaxed in many countries in the last few months. Apart from Vande Bharat, chartered flights and several non-scheduled flights, more and more people are taking international flights via “air bubble” arrangements in the absence of regular air travel services between countries. In a report dated November 11 in The Hindu, officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) say, "from about 90 flights in September, the number has risen to 190 and from 10,000 passengers in September, the number ballooned to 21,000 last month by the 'air bubble' flights alone. There are a number of flights from Chennai to Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait and London and Maldives, the officials said." London-Heathrow features prominently in the restricted international passenger traffic in 2020 across India.

Air traffic was suspended in India on March 25 to check the spread of COVID-19. Flight operations resumed in May after two months of complete shutdown. International flights, still quite restricted, are only operating on select routes and London-Heathrow features prominently in the limited international passenger traffic in 2020 across India. Other major Indian airports are yet to release detailed numbers on international fliers in the last few months.