Thursday, March 28, 2024

Amritsar beats all International Airports in India with 83.5% growth in domestic traffic

Passenger traffic crosses 20 lakh mark in 2017 at Sri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport

Amritsar, Feb 6 (Punjab Post Bureau) – Shri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport Rajasansi (Amritsar) has beaten Amritsar Airportall the other international airports in the country in Dec 2017 with highest domestic passenger growth of 83.5% and aircraft movement increase of 103.5% in comparison to the same month in 2016. Footfall of domestic passengers in Dec 2017 reached 1,62,932 in comparison to 88,790 during the corresponding month in 2016.

Sameep Singh Gumtala, aviation analyst and Overseas Secretary Amritsar Vikas Manch (NGO), in statement to the press said that analysis of recently released data by Airport Authority of India for all the airports in India also revealed that the total monthly footfall of passengers (domestic and international) at the airport reached an all-time high of 2,19,216 surpassing previous month November total of 2,13,615 passengers. International passengers’ footfall also increased by 8.4% to 56,284 in Dec 2017 compared to 51,945 in the Dec 2016.

In another landmark, annual footfall of international passengers crossed 20.6 lakh in 2017 witnessing an increase of 37.4% over previous year when 15 lakh passengers landed and boarded from the city airport. Traffic between Amritsar-Delhi sector was the highest with 11 lakh passengers followed by Amritsar-Mumbai with 2.81 lakh passengers. Even with the addition of no international flights in 2017, total international traffic in 2017 increased by 17% to 5.91 lakh passengers compared to 5.1 lakh in 2016. Amritsar-Dubai route continued to be the highest with 2.3 lakh followed by 1.1 lakh passengers on Amritsar-Doha route operated by Qatar Airways.

Gumtala said, “The credit goes todomestic flights launched in 2017 to Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Srinagar, Jammu, Nanded which brought the Amritsar airport once again in the limelight. Amritsar continued to outpace domestic national average growth each month and also 2017 total domestic average increase of 17 percent.Installation of CAT-3B at the airport resulted in less cancellation of flights in December compared to the previous years.

Manch Patron, Manmohan Singh, who is also a member of airport advisory committee said that Indian carriers did not start any international flight from Amritsar and continues to connect passengers to international destinations via Delhi. However, this is going to change with the launch of twice-weekly Amritsar-Birmingham flight on Feb 20. Foreign carriers including Air Asia X, Thai Smile are planning International flights from the airport. Middle east carriers including Emirates, Turkish, Fly Dubai are interested but not able to do so due to the non-revival of bilateral air agreements by India.

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