Nagpur: According to The Hindu report published, airports in the country witnessed a total 34.4 crore passengers during financial year 2018-2019, registering a growth of 11.6% as compared to the previous fiscal, according to data from the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
These include domestic, international as well as those passengers who take chartered planes.
Domestic fliers grow
Domestic passengers stood at 27.5 crore, recording a growth of 13.1%. There were a total of 6.9 crore international passengers, a rise of 6.1% as compared to financial year 2018.
Each domestic passenger is counted twice — once at departure airport and a second time at the arrival airport. International passengers are counted just once.
The overall growth rate of 11.6%, however, is the slowest in the last three years. Indian airports saw a growth of 16.5% in financial year 2017-18 and 18.3% in financial year 2016-2017.
Among the six joint-venture airports that together account for 40% of the total traffic, Nagpur airport saw the fastest growth (28.2%). This was followed by Bengaluru (23.8%), Hyderabad (17.9%), Delhi (5.4%) and Mumbai (0.7%). Cochin airport saw a negative growth of -0.5%.
Faced with severe capacity crunch, Mumbai airport registered a negative growth in terms of domestic passengers at -1.3%.
Among the AAI-owned top 20 international airports, the fastest growth was seen at smaller airports such as Vijaywada (58.7%), Tirupati (42.7%), Varanasi(33.4%), Imphal(29.3%) and Bhubaneshwar (27.9%).
The same set of airports also saw the fastest rise in the number of aircraft movements — Vijaywada (58.6%) , Imphal (48.6%), Tirupati (47.4%), Varanasi (39.3%) and Nagpur (34.1%).
