Amid unpredictability of the weather, the stranded passengers had already taken the alternate route and traveled by road by Friday and potential flyers too had not made any booking for the day.[break]
“Almost all companies operated fewer number of flights. Worse still even the flights they operated were heavily under-occupied,” said Purna Chudal, chief at domestic terminal of Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA).
Senior airline officials confirmed what Chudal said. “Occupancy in case of Buddha Air too remained at meager 50 percent. This was quite unlike any other normal day,” said Rupesh Joshi, executive manager of Buddha Air -- the largest domestic operator.
Ankur Rana, reservation manager of Yeti Airlines, another major operator, too said that the volume of passengers that the airlines catered to on the day remained far less.
Owing to bad weather, the number of flights operated from the TIA had dropped by an average of 20 percent over the last five days. More than 110 flights were cancelled stranding more than 3,500 passengers in different airports, according to TIA data.
“Together, it caused the aviation industry to lose revenue of more than Rs 12 million rupees,” calculated airlines operators.
As the number of passengers remained too low on Friday as well, operators tagged the day as the ´day of partial loss´. They even assessed that the cancellations will continue to cast its impact on the industry for few more days as well.
Chudal said cancellation of flights due to weather problems was normal phenomenon during winter. “It was happening in the past and will probably continue to haunt the industry in the future as well. It will be unfair to refer it as loss,” he said.
However, the airlines officials said lack of passengers even after the bad weather ended was unusual.
“In most cases, people used to wait for flights to resume. And we used to easily find passengers to fill the vacant seat even if some cancelled their tickets. That did not happen this time round,” said Rana, referring that the problem faced by the industry was unusual.
Operators said their booking for the next few days in sectors like Janakpur, Bhirahawa, Biratnagar and Bhadrapur remained very disappointing.
In a busy day, domestic airlines operate as many as 300 flights from the domestic terminal of TIA. During winter, however, the number of flights tend to drop to as low as 180 a day due to bad weather.
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