BENGALURU: The Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) crossed the 150 million passengers mark on March 25 since its opening in May 2008. The airport has seen an approximate 13% growth in the number of passengers every year for the past decade with the 50 million mark crossed in 1,671 days of operation on December 19, 2012. In 2017, a record 25.04 million passengers used South India's largest airport and air traffic grew by 4.3% with 184,348 air traffic movements last year.
"This is a reflection of Bengaluru's growing economic might. There has been a significant increase in demand for air travel resulting in soaring traffic figures," said Hari Marar, Managing Director and CEO, Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL). The airport on Monday announced its summer schedule and said that global carrier Gulf Air, would return to KIA to provide daily flights to Bahrain from May 1. This will take the total number of global destinations connected from KIA to 22. In addition, 47 domestic destinations will be connected from KIA with the addition of two new domestic routes to Vadodara and Jammu to be operated by Jet Airways and IndiGo.
"During summer 2018, the daily Air Traffic Movement (ATM) is expected to touch 666 movements per day (591 domestic and 75 international) and will progressively reach 687 per day (609 domestic and 78 international). During the course of the recently concluded Winter Schedule, KIA recorded an average of 621 daily movements (547 domestic, 74 international)," a statement from BIAL said. This would mean a planned growth of 9% for international air traffic movements and 14% for domestic movements. "The overall growth forecast for summer 2018 is pegged at 13 percent, up by 1 percent compared to summer 2017."
The hourly runway capacity will continue to remain the same at 38 ATM/hour for this summer. Emirates, Etihad, IndiGo and Jet Airways are still the top four international airlines and IndiGo continues to be the top domestic carrier to operate from KIA.