Number of flyers and the aircraft traffic are continuing to go up by the year

Reflecting the increasing patronage for air travel in the State, the number of flyers and the aircraft traffic are continuing to go up by the year.

Though the current growth in the number of domestic passengers registered is not as exciting as the last year’s record figure, the overall growth achieved by the Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Rajahmundry airports in the last four years is huge at 136% considering the passenger traffic from 2015 to 2018, according to the latest Traffic News report released by the Airports Authority of India.As per the report pertaining to traffic in fiscal 2017-18, the four airports registered 39.45 lakh domestic passengers while it was only 16.70 lakh in the 2014-15 fiscal.

Compared to 2016-17, the passenger traffic went up by 8.69% in 2017-18, the reports reveal.Tirupati, Vijayawada airports on the forefront.Among the four airports, Tirupati and Vijayawada, which got international status, had witnessed considerable growth while Visakhapatnam and Rajahmundry only had a slight rise in numbers.In the recent fiscal year, Tirupati served 5.84 lakh (20.3% growth) and Vijayawada 7.46 lakh (19.9% growth) domestic passengers. Rajahmundry witnessed only 2.5% growth while it is still on the growth path.

The Visakhapatnam Airport, which is the only airport serving international traffic, has registered a growth of 36.7% by serving 1.33 lakh passengers and recovered from the earlier year’s downward trend. It served only 0.59 lakh international passengers four years ago.

220% growth infour years

The Vijayawada airport, which is awaiting international services, has registered 220% growth in passenger traffic in the past four years. It is followed by Tirupati at 138%, Visakhapatnam at 125% and Rajahmundry at 74%. The Kadapa airport, which had witnessed an interruption in the services, served 42,842 passengers in the last fiscal year. In the aircraft traffic, Visakhapatnam witnessed 22.1% growth in the international movements. Vijayawada witnessed 11,998 movements and a growth of 16.1%. Visakhapatnam which witnessed 17,860 aircraft movements registered a downfall of 1.5%.