A big leap for Andhra Pradesh airports, traffic growth sky-rockets

VISAKHAPATNAM: The four airports in Andhra Pradesh have registered a robust growth in air passenger traffic during 2016-17 fiscal with the

Visakhapatnam Airport

leading by handling an all-time high of 23.58 lakh passengers as against 18.04 lakh in 2015-16. The city airport registered a growth rate of 30.7% in 2016-17.

At the same time,

Vijayawada Airport

recorded 6.22 lakh passenger traffic in 2016-17 as against 3.98 lakh in 2015-16 registering a growth of 56.1%.

Similarly, air passenger traffic at Tirupati airport grew by 31% and 16.7% at Rajahmundry airport.

Incidentally, the bulk of the passenger traffic at

Vizag Airport

was from domestic passengers. As many as 21.12 lakh domestic passengers used the Vizag Airport in 2016-17 as against 16.8 lakh in the previous fiscal registering a growth of 34.3%. However, international air passenger traffic declined by 19.5% from 1.21 lakh in 2015-16 to just about 97849 in 2016-17.

“The major reason for the growth is that connectivity is increasing. More flights are connecting different destinations with Vizag and airfares are also more affordable as compared to previous years,” observed Vizag Airport director Vinod Kumar Sharma. He said, “We will be targeting to cross the 2.5 million mark in the current fiscal.”

Airline enthusiast Gunadeep Narendrapuram said, “The international air passenger traffic declined due to the stoppage of Malindo Air last year. Apart from that blip, domestic connectivity is improving. Traffic at Vizag can grow faster if there are direct flights to other destinations such as Pune and Goa.”

Domestic air freight handled at Vizag Airport has also witnessed a surge in 2016-17. The airport handled 4708 tonnes in 2016-17 as against 2935 tonnes in 2015-16 registering a growth of 60.4%.

In fact, domestic aircraft movements increased from 15078 in 2015-16 to around 18129 in 2016-17 at Vizag Airport, whereas international aircraft movements dropped from 1661 in 2015-16 to 1421 in 2016-17 as Malindo Air stopped operations in February last year.

Visakhapatnam Airport is connected to 13 domestic destinations and three international destinations including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai.


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