The Vijayawada International Airport has been getting busier and patronage for air travel has been growing exponentially with more people taking the air route to travel between the capital city and various destinations in the country. The passenger traffic has increased by five times since 2014, the year in which the State was bifurcated.
According to the traffic reports by the Airports Authority of India, between April 2018 and March 2019 the city airport in Gannavaram handled 11.84 lakh international and domestic passengers registering a growth of 58.7 % in overall passenger traffic compared to the traffic of 7.46 lakh passengers in 2017-18 fiscal year.
The airport also registered a steep growth in the number of flights handled in the past fiscal. With a total of 19,026 movements handled between April 2018 and March 2019, the airport achieved a growth of 58%. In the previous year, the airport handled close to 12,000 movements.
International flight services did not add much to the overall growth of the airport traffic. The number of international passengers and aircraft handled since the launch of services in December 2018 is 6,294 and 69 respectively. The government expected higher occupancy ratio but it was just above 50% until March this year.
Cargo services
Apart from handling international traffic for the first time in the recent fiscal, the airport also provided domestic air cargo services for the first time.
In all, 382 metric tonnes of cargo was flown between the city and other destinations in the country. With no air carrier coming with dedicated freight services, the goods were carried only via belly cargo offered by various carriers.
No other airport in the State witnessed such a huge increase in traffic. During 2014-15, the airport handled only 2.31 lakh passengers and during 2015-16 when Amaravati was announced as capital 3.98 lakh passengers were served.
Later, during 2016-17, 6.22 lakh passengers were handled and during 2017-18 7.46 lakh passengers were attended to.
From serving 2.31 lakh passengers five years ago to serving 11.78 lakh passengers now, the airport has witnessed a five-fold growth in the number of air travellers.
ISO certification
For its best practices, the airport has been awarded ISO 9001: 2015 certification recently. The certificate was handed over to the Airport Director G. Madhusudhan Rao on Saturday.
According to Mr. Rao, the certification was awarded to the airport for providing world-class facilities, ensuring safety and security of aircraft operations and making it the most user-friendly with the best ambience.
