Sahar Terminal 2 wears deserted look, eateries, shops stare at loss

In the past four years, summer would see Mumbai airport teeming with passengers as the peak season for air travel would be heralded by aircraft flying at full occupancy. This summer though, with Jet Airways almost entirely vacating out of Sahar Terminal 2, the portion occupied by the cash-strapped airline almost wears a deserted look now.

Though IndiGo began operating about 20 flights from Terminal 2 on April 15 and AirAsia India has ramped up its operations from this terminal recently, the scale of operations is nowhere close to that handled by Jet. Last April, Jet operated 3,200 departures and 3,195 arrivals at Mumbai airport Terminal 2, it’s main hub, shows passenger data collected by Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL). Even by a conservative estimate that would be about 5 lakh departure and arrival passengers at the terminal that month. DGCA data shows that in April 2018, Jet held a domestic market share of 16 % and flew 18.67 lakh passengers across the country.

Now Jet is conspicuous by its absence at Terminal 2. A Jet Airways commander said, “I operated a flight in the first week of April and was taken aback when I walked into Terminal 2. All, but one Jet check-in counter was shut.’’ The impact has been felt by eating joints and shops at T2. “The entire section of a restaurant was shut down. I spoke to the staff and they said that the business suddenly dipped in the past two weeks,’’ said the commander.

If the situation continues, the airport may also face loss of non-aeronautical revenue in the long run. Gaurav Dewan, CCO Travel Food Services, which operates several food outlets at T2, said: “Passenger footfall has gone down from the third week of March after Jet’s international flights were cancelled. But yesterday, IndiGo moved into T2 with 20-odd flights and we should see some of the lost traffic coming back.’’ Dewan was optimistic that as summer progresses, T2 will find itself handling more and more passengers. ``We’ve seen many Jet passengers change flights and reschedule their itineraries. People travel, they book themselves on other airlines,’’ Dewan said.

Source:-https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/food-entertainment/food-services/sahar-terminal-2-wears-deserted-look-eateries-shops-stare-at-loss/68918579