BENGALURU: In line with the constantly improving air passenger traffic scenario in the country, airports have recorded an increase of 8.1% last month as compared to February last year with international travel from the country driving the growth.
Air Traffic Report for February 2024 released by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) reveals that when it comes to the airports in Karnataka, Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Belagavi have shown an increase in flyers while Mysuru, Kalaburagi, and Hubballi have shown a dip in ridership.
Data reveals that the country has seen a 19.3% growth in international traffic with 5.94 million passengers in February 2024 as compared to 4.98 million in the corresponding period last year. Domestic traffic has recorded a 5.8% growth with 25.44 million and 24.05 million during the respective periods.
Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) has seen a 6.3% increase in overall patronage with 30,46,010 flyers versus 28,66,773 in the period taken for comparison. Of this, the international passenger traffic has a 16.4% growth over February last year with 3,78,052 flying abroad from Bengaluru last month. Its domestic growth stands at 5% with 26,67,958 passengers flying in February 2024.
Belagavi is showing a resurgence with an 80.6% growth with 29,530 passengers taking to the skies in February this year as compared to 16,353 in February 2023. “After SpiceJet shut operations at Belagavi completely, IndiGo has launched daily operations in the Belagavi-Delhi route. It has a good patronage with 70% now. When the summer vacation period starts, it will cross 90%. This has boosted our growth this February compared to last year Also, StarAir used to operate an Embraer 145 aircraft to Mumbai from here earlier. It has now changed it to an Embraer 175 aircraft which has 80 seats and its operations are for six days a week,” Airport Director S Thiyagarajan told TNIE.
Meanwhile, Mangaluru has recorded a 24.5% growth with 1,69,362 flyers in February this year as against 1,36,007 flyers last February. Karnataka’s newest airport, Shivamogga, is slowly picking up pace with 7,282 flyers in February. It had 6,430 flyers in January this year.
Patronage down
Mysuru airport continues to have a huge dip in patronage with just 8,096 flyers recorded, a 37.3% dip over February 2023 when it had 12,918 flyers. Airport Director TR Anoop attributed the dip to Alliance Air pulling out of its Goa operations from Mysuru earlier and then from Hyderabad by mid-February. IndiGo flights to Hyderabad and Chennai are presently operational here. Airlines who were interested in running different routes under the Regional Connectivity Scheme earlier have diverted to other routes, he added.