Notwithstanding a lockdown in the Kashmir Valley and the situation in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir following the Centre’s announcement of modifying Article 370 of the Constitution on Monday, air travel from Delhi to airports such as Srinagar, Jammu and Leh saw significant passenger loads during the day on the sectors both way. While a senior executive at a private airline said that no discernible impact was witnessed on passenger loads, an Air India official said that its Delhi-Srinagar direct flight operated with around 65 per cent load factor on Monday. The return leg of the flight was 98 per cent full. Following an advisory by the J&K government last week asking tourists to leave the Kashmir Valley region in light of intelligence inputs of a potential terror threat, air fares on the Srinagar-Delhi sector had skyrocketed. However, later the fares remained subdued as private airlines implemented a cap of Rs 10,000 on the sector. Flag-carrier Air India said it would hold maximum fare on the route at Rs 6,715 till August 15. For Wednesday’s flights on the route, the cheapest one-way fare amounted to Rs 2,384. The Air India official said that load factors for the airline’s flights across three airports remained high on Monday with even Delhi-Leh and Leh-Delhi flying with 95 per cent bookings. An official at a low-cost airline said that more than half of bookings for its flights on Monday and Tuesday out of Srinagar happened on the spot at the airport as a communication blackout prevented passengers from booking it online. One airline had to ferry airport staff from Delhi to keep its operations running given that a curfew prevented its local employees in Srinagar from turning up for work. On Saturday, a day after the advisory was issued, over 6,000 passengers at Srinagar airport were flown out by the airlines through 29 scheduled flights as well as four Indian Air Force flights. On Wednesday, 30 flights are set to operate out of Srinagar.
