Kol airport records pre-Cov high in revenue, passenger footfall
Times of India | 4 July 2025
Kolkata: Kolkata airport clocked the highest ever revenue and profit in 2023-24, surpassing the previous highest recorded in 2019-20 prior to the pandemic. Kolkata retained the numero uno position in the list of airports operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Kolkata airport's Rs 670 crore profit in 2023-24 was almost two-and-a-half times that of Chennai, which registered a profit of Rs 282 crore. Kolkata airport's revenue at Rs 1,578.6 crore was 30% more than Chennai's Rs 1,212.8 crore.
"In 2023-24, Kolkata airport's profit increased by 23% over the previous highest in 2019-20 when the facility clocked Rs 545 crore. While the figure is the highest ever, the airport has a lot more potential. Currently, we are constrained by the infrastructure inadequacies that limit the number of wide-body aircraft that the airport can handle. But we are working to enhance capacity. Kolkata airport's profitability should cross Rs 1,000 crore by 2025-26," airport director Pravat Ranjan Beuria said.
Around 79% of the revenue earned by Kolkata airport is from traffic, which includes flight landings, takeoffs, and parking charges. While the traffic component will continue to grow, the airport is targeting a larger pie from non-traffic revenue and aims to increase it to around 25-30% in a decade.
In the traffic revenue, international traffic contributes to only around 15%, with domestic traffic making up the bulk. Kolkata has emerged as a domestic transit hub for flights to and from north-east India. Also, traffic to South-East Asia from the region uses Kolkata airport as a hub.
"On the domestic front, we have already surpassed the pre-Covid passenger footfall, and there has been a steady growth in revenue in passenger traffic as well as non-passenger traffic sectors. The passenger count will increase with the addition of more domestic and international flights," said Beuria.
Between Jan and Dec 2024, 2.1 crore passengers and 1.5 lakh flights used Kolkata airport. The passenger count was 32 lakh more than in 2023, when 1.8 crore people used the airport.
In 2019, the airport hosted 2.3 crore passengers, which dropped to only 94.6 lakh during the pandemic. In 2019-20, just before the airport was shut for a substantial period with a slew of restrictions even when air travel resumed, the airport registered an all-time high profit of Rs 545.1 crore.
The average flight passenger count also surpassed the 2019 figure and reached an all-time high of 146 passengers per flight. The average passenger count per flight in 2019 was 143. In 2023 and 2022, the average passenger count per flight was 129 and 123, respectively.
Apart from growth in traffic, the use of renewable energy and stress on solar power also helped reduce expenses.
Among the major infrastructure projects that saw major investments were airside capacity enhancement (Rs 329 crore), construction of the ATC Tower (Rs 247 crore), construction of the apron between bay 11 and 48 (Rs 9 crore), construction of the new CISF complex at Narayanpur (Rs 77 crore), and resurfacing of the primary runway (Rs 70.4 crore).
Among the ongoing expenses are Rs 109 crore kept for capacity enhancement of the terminal and Rs 299 crore for the construction of the domestic cargo terminal.
While Kolkata suffered a loss of Rs 193.7 crore in FY 2020, it bounced back the next fiscal, making a profit of Rs 145.3 crore.