Kolkata: The conflict in West Asia, which caused widespread disruption to international flights, also affected domestic flyer count at Kolkata airport.Passenger data collated at the airport for around 1 week after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Feb 28, and the latter retaliated with attacks on neighbouring countries that have US military bases, showed that domestic passenger movement reduced by 5,000-10,000 a day.While the maximum dip of around 10,000 passengers a day was on March 3 and 4, possibly on account of Dol and Holi, the passenger count dipped from over 54,000 prior to the war to a shade above 51,000 on March 2 and below 50,000 on March 5.Travel agents attributed the dip to the cancellation of international flights from Delhi and Mumbai that several flyers from Kolkata took in the absence of direct flights from the city. Though there was an initial rush by those who needed to travel to Europe or the east coast of the US urgently to fly to the other metros to catch direct flights, it tapered off soon enough, with closed airspaces leading to large-scale flight cancellations.“Following the outbreak of war, those who did not have urgent travel requirements cancelled their trips. Naturally, the domestic legs of the journey were also cancelled,” a travel agent pointed out.While the domestic flight count was not hit by the war, the conflict majorly impacted international flight movements (arrivals and departures) in Kolkata, with average daily flight movements down from around 46 to 34. This led to a 40% reduction in passenger count.While the international passenger movement at Kolkata airport was consistently over 6,000 a day prior to the war, it since declined to just over 4,000 a day. On March 3, the international wing of Kolkata airport handled only 3,676 flyers.“Passenger count already took a hit due to the reduction in flyers between Dhaka and Kolkata due to visa issues. The situation in the Gulf only added to the woes. In this uncertain atmosphere, no one wants to travel and then get stranded in a foreign country. Thus, people who were scheduled to travel to Europe, Egypt, Turkey, or other places are postponing the trip,” said another travel agent.“Since most flyers from the west availed of Gulf carriers to visit the city, the current situation also affected the diversity of flyers at Kolkata airport,” an airport official said.
