NEW DELHI: Domestic travel across the country has witnessed a minor dip in February 2026 as compared to February 2025, reveals traffic data released by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
With international traffic gaining a slight momentum, the overall passenger growth across India has crossed 3.5 crore, up by 0.5% during the compared period.
The Air Traffic Report for 2026 shows that 3,50,84,972 people have taken to the skies in February this year versus 3,49,11,116 in February 2025. Of this, the domestic travellers stood at 28, 84,91,266 marking a dip of 0.1% during the comparison period.
International passengers stood at 65,93,706 in Feburary, an increase of 3% over the passengers who flew abroad during the same month last year.
Among the major airports, Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport continues to record a substantial international passenger growth with 5,92,937 flyers in February 2026, an increase of 19.1% over the same month last year.
Delhi airport is the only one among major airports to have a negative international growth (0.1%) in the comparison period while Mumbai had a 3% growth, Hyderabad 14.2% and Chennai recorded 0.4% .
The following airports have registered substantial international growth, ranging from 20.9 % to 89.1% over the patronage in their respective airports in February 2025: Surat (18,724 passengers), Varanasi (16,389) Guwahati (5366), Gaya (15,294), Chandigarh (19700), Indore (7594), Vijayawada (4,700) and Mangaluru (63245). Vijayawada has recorded the maximum international growth of 89.1%
On the domestic front, the following airports have showed a growth of over 25% in Feb 2026 over Feb 2025: Bagdogra 3,11,915 (28.5% growth); Tiruchirappalli 61,442 (42.6%); Gaya 24840 (30.7%); Agra 23366 (46.7%), Bhuj 26,925 (28.8%), Kullu Manali 2015 (42.3%), Bikaner 4252 (39.6%), Dharbanga 58,135 (40.1%), Dimapur 30,825 (31.8%), Itanagar 17047 (42.5%) , Jalgaon 11,650 (48.5%), Jamnagar 17,368 (39.8%) , Jharsuguda 34,044 (25%), Jodhpur 1,23,382 (26.7%) and Jorhat 16161 (48.1%), Udaipur 204926 (31.1%) and Nasik (30.3%) .
The total number of Air Traffic Movements (arrivals and departures) have shown a 0.5% decrease with 2,31 lakh movements in Feb 2026 vs 2.6 lakh in Feb 2025.
Freight traffic has shown a substantial 17.9% change in the compared period.