I'm looking at 40 crore air travellers by 2027

INTERVIEW Jyotiraditya Scindia, civil aviation minister

- K. SUNIL THOMAS

After two years of the pandemic, there is optimism that India is set for a big boom in aviation. How do you see the prospects? A/ I certainly hope the worst is behind us. As this pandemic has shown, it is important to be on our toes, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The civil aviation sector underwent losses of $370 billion globally and close to $2.9 billion (around ₹2,200 crore) domestically. To reemerge like a phoenix post this torturous 26 months or so is certainly something to be celebrated.

Just to give you some numbers, we were close to four lakh passengers a day pre-Covid and we reached that level at 4.07 lakh persons travelling on a particular day in May. We are now averaging 3.6 lakh to 4 lakh on a daily basis, which is extremely heartening.

Even through these difficult times, airlines have been doing huge public service with the Vande Bharat flights and Operation Ganga. The successful divestment of Air India has freed up taxpayer money—it had ₹63,000 crore in debt and [was] making losses of ₹20 crore a day (₹7,500 crore a year). That money would now be better utilised through investment in infra, education and health sector and other areas. That was an extremely important event for us, as it was a divestment that had failed multiple times.