Festive push: With 19.2L flyers in Oct, airport records its highest post-pandemic footfall
Times of India | 3 November 2024
123 Kolkata: The city airport registered its highest post-pandemic passenger traffic in Oct, driven by the convergence of festivals including Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Diwali and Bhai Phonta. The numbers, while impressive, remained below the pre-pandemic Oct 2019 levels. The airport handled 19.2 lakh passengers in the month, compared to 20.1 lakh in Oct 2019. Notably, 2019 also experienced an early Durga Puja in Oct first week, with other major festivals happening in the same month.
"There was a steady stream of flyers from the start of the month, and there were 60,000-plus passengers transiting through airport on almost all days of the week. If we were not forced to shut airport for almost 14 hours spread over two days, leading to multiple flight cancellations, the passenger count would have been even more," said Pravat Ranjan Beuria, the airport director.
Beuria noted that additional staff were deployed to ensure smooth passenger movement, and during peak hours, DigiYatra lanes were utilised for manual entry to facilitate faster processing. Official data indicates the airport served 17.2 lakh passengers in Oct 2023. The Covid-affected years of 2020 and 2021 saw significantly reduced numbers of 8.1 lakh and 12.4 lakh, respectively. While numbers increased to 16.3 lakh in 2022 following the removal of travel restrictions, they haven't yet reached 2019 levels.
This Oct, domestic arrivals totalled 9 lakh while departures were 8.2 lakh. International traffic comprised 1.1 lakh incoming passengers and approximately 1 lakh outbound travellers. Oct 20 recorded the highest single-day traffic with 72,013 flyers, while the daily average for the month stood at 62,000.
Officials reported that Oct 2019 saw 17.4 lakh domestic passengers across 13,106 flights and 2.7 lakh international passengers in 2,173 flights, averaging 131 passengers per flight. "However, we are yet to achieve the pre-Covid flight count in the domestic sector, and in the international sector, a number of flights that stopped service during Covid are yet to return. Last month, there were 11,390 domestic flights and 1,261 international flights, making it a combined strength of 12,651 against 15,279 flights that were there in 2019. There were around 152 flyers per flight last month, which is significantly more than the passengers per flight in 2019," said another official.
Officials noted continued high passenger numbers in early Nov. Even on Sunday, the airport departure area was chock-a-block with passengers heading back to their workplaces after the end of festivities.
Kolkata: The city airport registered its highest post-pandemic passenger traffic in Oct, driven by the convergence of festivals including Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Diwali and Bhai Phonta. The numbers, while impressive, remained below the pre-pandemic Oct 2019 levels. The airport handled 19.2 lakh passengers in the month, compared to 20.1 lakh in Oct 2019. Notably, 2019 also experienced an early Durga Puja in Oct first week, with other major festivals happening in the same month.
"There was a steady stream of flyers from the start of the month, and there were 60,000-plus passengers transiting through airport on almost all days of the week. If we were not forced to shut airport for almost 14 hours spread over two days, leading to multiple flight cancellations, the passenger count would have been even more," said Pravat Ranjan Beuria, the airport director.
Beuria noted that additional staff were deployed to ensure smooth passenger movement, and during peak hours, DigiYatra lanes were utilised for manual entry to facilitate faster processing. Official data indicates the airport served 17.2 lakh passengers in Oct 2023. The Covid-affected years of 2020 and 2021 saw significantly reduced numbers of 8.1 lakh and 12.4 lakh, respectively. While numbers increased to 16.3 lakh in 2022 following the removal of travel restrictions, they haven't yet reached 2019 levels.
This Oct, domestic arrivals totalled 9 lakh while departures were 8.2 lakh. International traffic comprised 1.1 lakh incoming passengers and approximately 1 lakh outbound travellers. Oct 20 recorded the highest single-day traffic with 72,013 flyers, while the daily average for the month stood at 62,000.
Officials reported that Oct 2019 saw 17.4 lakh domestic passengers across 13,106 flights and 2.7 lakh international passengers in 2,173 flights, averaging 131 passengers per flight. "However, we are yet to achieve the pre-Covid flight count in the domestic sector, and in the international sector, a number of flights that stopped service during Covid are yet to return. Last month, there were 11,390 domestic flights and 1,261 international flights, making it a combined strength of 12,651 against 15,279 flights that were there in 2019. There were around 152 flyers per flight last month, which is significantly more than the passengers per flight in 2019," said another official.
Officials noted continued high passenger numbers in early Nov. Even on Sunday, the airport departure area was chock-a-block with passengers heading back to their workplaces after the end of festivities.