Kempegowda International Airport served 25.04 million passengers in 2017 and recorded a growth of 12.9%. The international airport in the city continues to be the busiest in south India and the third busiest airport in the country, after New Delhi and Mumbai.
Domestic passenger traffic has grown by 14.5% (to 21.31 million) and international passenger traffic has increased by 4.7 per cent% (to 3.73 million).
Air Traffic Movements during the year increased by 4.3% with 43 scheduled airlines connecting the city to 62 destinations nationally and globally.
In 2017, the highest passenger movement was witnessed on December 23 with 87,815 passengers travelling through KIA. The same day, 603 air traffic movements (ATM) were recorded and the airport handled 3,39,461 metric tonnes of cargo.
“We surpassed forecasted numbers and continue on a positive growth trajectory,” said Hari Marar, MD and CEO of Bengaluru International Airport Ltd (BIAL).
The airport has upgraded runway capacity. Two rapid taxiways were commissioned in August last year. “This increases capacity from 34 to 38 ATMs per hour, and will progressively increase to 44 ATMs per hour,” states a release from BIAL.
BIAL hopes that the second runway will be operational in 2019. Construction of Terminal 2 will start in the middle of this year and the terminal will be operational in 2021.
“Terminal 2 will be constructed in two phases. The first phase will cater to 25 million passengers annually while the second phase will add capacity of another 20 million passengers. It is estimated that on completion of T2, the airport's overall capacity would reach 65 million.”
