E-Paper
India top traffic contributor to international airports
India’s fast growing international passenger traffic has made it the top destination country for major international airports.
India’s fast growing international passenger traffic has made it the top destination country for major international airports.
India’s international passenger traffic grew by over six per cent to 45.7 million passengers in 2014-15 as compared to 43 million the previous year.
“India is Dubai International airport’s top destination country with 10.4 million passengers in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 17 per cent over 8.9 million passengers recorded in 2014. Dubai airport handled 78 million passengers in 2015,” said a spokesperson of the Dubai International airport.
Singapore’s Changi airport handled 3.4 million Indian passengers in 2015. India ranked seventh in Changi’s top country links.
“The daily estimated traffic to North America from India is around 11,000 passengers. India’s growing middle class population has taken to international travel in a big way. Many prefer a vacation to a short-haul international destination like Thailand than say Andamans,” said Rajji Rai, chairman Swift Travels.
“Indians travelling abroad is growing year-on-year and the country has become a very large contributor of traffic to a number of countries,” said Sharat Dhall, president, Yatra.com.
“Besides Dubai and Singapore, India is one of the biggest contributors of traffic to UK and Thailand. With outbound travel growing significantly, passenger traffic from India to Australia has almost doubled,” Dhall said.
Indians are also big spenders abroad. Around 6% retail sales at Changi are courtesy Indian passengers in 2015 with the favourite buys being liquor and tobacco, perfumes and cosmetics followed by confectionaries, electronics and jewellery.
