Passenger traffic on the rise at Gujarat airports in April

The Sardar Vallabhbhai International Airport has recorded a 44 per cent rise in international passenger traffic in April this year against the year-ago period.

Major airports in the state, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Vadodara apart from smaller ones such as Bhavnagar and Jamnagar together handled 63 per cent more domestic traffic during April, 2004 than domestic traffic handled during April, last year.

Taking note of the substantial increase in air passengers in the state, Singapore International Airlines (SIA), Slovak Airlines and Cosmos Travels are planning to start their services from Ahmedabad.

According to a recent report published by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, during April, 2003 over 63,000 passengers used domestic air terminals in Gujarat, while in April this year more than 1,03,000 passengers took domestic flights in the state, thus registering a 62.87 per cent growth year-on-year.

Interestingly, in March, this year, there was a fall in domestic passngers at Gujarat airports at 102,000, which was .66 per cent lesser than March, 2003 but it gained momentum in April and recorded a significant rise.

All major domestic airlines, Indian Airlines, Air Sahara, Jet Airways and Air Deccan now have flights from most major airports in the state and with Air Deccan recently joining the bandwagon, the number of domestic flights are expected to rise along with the number of passengers in following months, said an industry expert.

The CMIE statistics also revealed that a little over 131,000 domestic passengers were handled in Gujarat airport during November, 2003, as this was the highest number of domestic air passengers seen during April, 03 to April 04. But this dropped in December to over 1,25,000.

"With domestic airlines now indulging in a fare war, we hope the number of domestic passengers to be increased further during the second quarter as Indian Airlines has already made a flat fare of Rs 2,000 to Mumbai from Ahmedabad, while Air Deccan recently slashed it to Rs 1,600 from the earlier Rs 2,200. It is also being observed that more and more business passengers are using the airport gateways of Gujarat because of rising industrial activities in the state," said a senior member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

In the international segment, while in April, 2003, Sardar Vallabhbhai International Airport, Ahmedabad handled only little more than 14,000 air passengers which was 24.82 percent rise than April, 2002, a year later, in April, this year, the airport handled over 20,000 international airpassengers which is 43.38 percent higher from passengers handled during April last year.

"While facilities in the airport is being made better and a strong possibility of bringing in Ahmedabad airport also under the FDI schemes for airport plan of the Civil Aviation Ministry, more new airlines are coming here and SIA is expected to start its services from this month itself. The plans are expected to be divulged only on Wednesday while flight schedules of Slovak Airlines and Cosmos Travels, a Europe-based tour operator recently got approval from the Director General of Civil Aviation," said an industry source.

SIA has plans to introduce three flights to Singapore from Ahmedabad from July 28.

Even in cargo business, airlines operating in Gujarat have recorded a substantial growth in business as in April, 2004. Gujarat airports handled 1461 tonne of cargo against 989 tonne of cargo handled in April, last year which is 47.72 per cent higher than April, 2003.

Highest volume of cargo, however, was handled in March, 2004 at 1590 tonne, which was 44.02 per cent higher than cargo handled in March, 2003.