Mumbai airport passenger traffic grows by 21% in 2021, shows data

The city's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) handled 21 per cent more passengers at 19.8 million in 2021 compared to the previous year, led by domestic passenger volume, which accounted for 88 per cent of the overall traffic, the private airport operator said on Monday.

This was driven by the recovery in domestic air travel, with the second half of 2021 seeing a whopping 117 per cent jump in passenger volume at around 10.9 million passengers as against around 5-million passengers in H2CY2020, it said.

The airport had handled a total of 16.3 million passengers in CY 2020, as per the CSMIA.

Of the 19.8 million passengers, the airport catered to approximately 17.4 million domestic passengers across 1,40,000 flights and over 2.43 million international passengers across 17,290 flights, it said.

The domestic passenger traffic accounted for almost 88 per cent of the overall passenger movement from CSMIA, it said.

In terms of international load, the last three quarters of CY 2021 cumulatively witnessed around 1.9 million passengers, which is approximately 174 per cent growth 2020 where over 0.7 million passenger footfalls were registered, the airport operator stated.

Also, CSMIA handled a record single day passenger movement of around 1,09,000 travellers in December 2021, transiting through the airport, which was the highest since March 2020, it said.

According to the airport operator, Delhi, Goa, Bengaluru continued to retain the spot as the top three domestic destinations from Mumbai with the highest number of passengers in CY2021 while the middle eastern countries Dubai, Doha, Sharjah were the top three international destinations with high passenger traffic to and from CSMIA in the previous year as compared to 2020 where Dubai, London-Heathrow and Newark were the top three international destinations.

Armenia, Miami, Houston, Glasgow, Nashik, Gwalior, Bareilly, Sindhudurg are among the 23 domestic and international destinations which were added in CY2021, it said, adding, Biman Bangladesh and Garuda Indonesia airlines commenced their maiden operations from CSMIA last year.

CSMIA currently acts as a gateway to 62 domestic destinations and 33 international destinations for passengers from Mumbai, it said.