“We are looking at new destinations like Jaipur and Lucknow. We think there’s demand there,” said Lim in an interview to the Straits Times.

Lim has described India as another bright spot, as passenger traffic and connectivity have already exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

Lim said that CAG will work with airlines to add more capacity on high-demand routes by increasing frequencies or getting carriers to use bigger planes.

For example, South Korea continues to draw healthy demand for inbound and outbound travel.

For China, which is still in the recovery phase, Lim said CAG is looking to add more direct links, especially to provincial capitals such as Guiyang in Guizhou province and Harbin in Heilongjiang province.

The ASEAN, Indian and South Korean markets have punched above their weight, says Subhas Menon, director-general of the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines, which counts SIA and Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific among its 15 members.

Menon is hopeful they will pick up 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the slack left by China for the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Singapore Daily report.

The Indira Gandhi International Airport has made a 99 per cent recovery as it handled 18.5 million passengers in 2023 compared to 18.7 million passengers that plied through the Delhi airport in 2019, a pre-pandemic level.

Singapore’s Changi Airport has recovered 86 per cent as it handled 58.9 million passengers in 2023 compared to 68.3 million handled in 2019, according to a table published by The Straits Times based on information sourced and accredited to Sobie Aviation, a Singapore-based independent analysis and consulting firm, specializing in the airline, airports and aerospace sectors.

Comparatively, traffic recovery at other leading Asian airports ranged from a low of 55 per cent for Hong Kong International Airport to 92 per cent for Haneda Airport in Japan, as per the table.