PATNA: With Bihar and other states maintaining a declining trend in Covid-19 cases, flight operations and footfalls have registered a steady growth at the Jayaprakash Narayan International Airport in Patna.
After some of the lockdown restrictions were relaxed in the state from June 1, the number of flyers departing from the airport increased considerably.
According to the data provided by the airport authorities, as many as 4,084 passengers travelled from the Patna airport to other states while only 2,509 arrived here on June 6.
On the same day last month, 4,028 people had flown back to the city and 1,535 left for other places.
Accordingly, different airlines have increased the number of aircraft from 19-23 about a week ago to 31-32 now.
Airport director Bhupesh C H Negi told this newspaper on Monday that improvement in the Covid-19 scenario in metros like Delhi and Mumbai was possibly the reason behind the rise in the number of passengers flying to other cities.
“People, who had returned to their hometown during the second wave of the pandemic, are returning to their workplaces,” he said.
Another airport official said the total number of flights from Patna had gone down mainly due to poor passenger traffic earlier.
A senior executive of the IndiGo also claimed that the footfalls had risen at the Patna airport after many states relaxed their lockdown restrictions.
“We are slowly recording an upward trend with a rise in demand for air travel,” he added.
Echoing similar views, a GoAir employee said, “Long queues can be seen at the airport now.
We are expect better footfalls in June as flyers have regained their confidence.” Sources claimed that only 2,189 passengers had travelled to other states from the Patna airport on May 27 and 901 people arrived here on May 13.