Amritsar Airport tops other International airports in passenger traffic

50.3% growth in total passenger traffic for January 2018

Amritsar, Mar. 20 (Punjab Post Bureau) – Sri Guru Ram Das Ji (SGRDJ) International airport Amritsar  continues to record impressive growth in current financial year of 2017-18 with passenger footfall and aircraft movements maintaining its upward trend for the year. According to Sameep Singh Gumtala, an aviation analyst and Overseas Secretary for Amritsar Vikas Manch (NGO), analysis of the latest passenger statistics released by Airport Authority of India for January 2018 reveals that Amritsar ranks at the top place across international airports in the country with 61% growth in domestic traffic in first ten months (April-January) of the current fiscal 2017-18.

It is also at fourth place in the country so far with 44.4% growth in total passenger traffic compared to the corresponding period in 2016-2017. Total passengers this year has reached around 18.6 lakh. This includes 13.5 lakh domestic and 5.1 lakh international passengers as compared to total of 12.9 lakh (8.4 lakh domestic plus 4.4 lakh international) passengers during the same period in previous year.

“In another landmark achievement, airport has also beaten all other international airports with 53% increase in total aircraft movement sand 78% increase in domestic aircraft movements for the ongoing current financial year. Altogether 14,724 flights, including inbound and outbound, operated from the airport between April-January in 2017-18 as against 9,621 flights during the same period in 2016-17. It also recorded highest growth of 51.7% in total aircraft movements for the month of January 2018 compared to January 2017,” said Gumtala.

Analysis of the data for January 2018 reveals thattotal passenger traffic registered growth of 50.3% increasing to 2.23 lakh from 1.49 lakh reported for the same month in previous year. Monthly traffic crossed the 2-lakh mark for the first time in October 2017. Since then, it has maintained its upward trend surpassing December 2017 record total of 2.19 lakh passengers.

For domestic traffic, Amritsar reported growth of around 74%, third highest among Int’l airports in the country after Srinagar and Madurai and well above the national average of 17% with a total of 1,64,297 passengers compared to 94,447 reported for the corresponding month of 2017. All reported domestic and total passenger growth is well above the national average growth of about 16%. A total of 2137 passenger travelled on newly started Amritsar-Nanded twice weekly flight. Occupancy on this flight is more than 80%.Manch has demanded increase in the frequency of this flight.

            While domestic traffic has been the main driver of growth for Amritsar airport, the contribution for the increase in international footfall should not be overlooked. Traffic grew by 9.1 percent with 59,256 passengers, up from 54,322 a year earlier in January 2017.At present, seven international destinations are directly connected with Amritsar that connects to other Int’l destinations from foreign airports. A big number of domestic passengers also transit via Delhi, Mumbai for international destinations. Manch continues to share this data with airline carriers requesting start of direct international flights.

 Expansion of existing terminal building

Manch representative for the airport and aviation affairs, Yogesh Kamra said that expansion of the apron area for ten-night parking spots for code 4C type of aircraft like Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 type aircrafts will further increase passenger footfall as Indian carriers operating these types of aircraft will be able to utilize ten new night parking spots. Anticipating further growth in traffic by 2019, the airport may reach its capacity saturation point of 44 lakh passengers. Hence AAI should start work for expansion of existing terminal and also plan for terminal-2 at the airport.