Bengaluru airport back to pre-Covid passenger levels due to high traffic

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru is back to pre-COVID passenger levels owing to the high traffic numbers recorded in the current financial year (2022-23) until October 26.

Passenger traffic volumes registered over 102 per cent growth in domestic travel and about 85 per cent growth in international travel in October 2022, as compared to October 2019, the airport's operator Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) said in a statement.

The airport welcomed 16.30 million passengers in the current financial year until the last week of October, versus 6.61 million passengers during the same period last year.

"We are very optimistic that this upward trend will continue over the next few quarters," said Chief Strategy and Development Officer, BIAL, Satyaki Raghunath.

Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Kochi, and Pune have been the top domestic routes accounting for 44 per cent of all traffic, while Dubai, Doha, Singapore, Frankfurt, and Male have been the top international routes contributing to 54 per cent of the international traffic in FY 2023 to date.

Growth in the international segment is expected to increase with more airlines inducting additional capacity and reinstating operations to and from the airport, it said.

Additionally, an increase in the number of flights to domestic destinations has led to enhanced connectivity to Tier II/III cities. As a result, the share of non-metro traffic at the airport increased to 58 per cent, whereas transfer traffic accounted for 14 per cent during the April-September 2022 period.

International carriers like Qantas and Cathay Pacific have commenced operations to and from the airport and these launches have also led to a higher volume in passenger numbers.

Emirates, Air France, KLM, Japan Airlines, and Kuwait Airways have expanded their operations, while Ethiopian, Malindo Air, and Air Asia have resumed scheduled passenger flights.

The higher demand is one of the primary reasons for Emirates to deploy A380 to the airport, it was stated.