Mumbai airport’s T1 sees 94,000 passengers in a week; to shift operations of a few IndiGo domestic flights from T2 to T1

In the first week of operations at the Mumbai airport’s T1, 46,187 passengers arrived and 48,529 passengers departed between October 13 and October 20

A week after Mumbai airport officials were forced to prepone the resumption of flight operations from the city’s Terminal 1 (T1) due to excessive footfalls at Terminal 2 (T2), it saw the movement of 94,716 passengers in seven days.

Mumbai aiport’s T1 had resumed operations for passengers from March 10, 2021, after remaining shut for nearly a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

In the first week of operations at T1, 46,187 passengers arrived and 48,529 passengers departed between October 13 and October 20. The terminal, which has four low-cost airlines operating, saw 730 flights being operated during the same week.

Mumbai airport’s T1 had resumed operations from March 10, 2021, after remaining shut for nearly a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, owing to the continuous decline in air travel, Covid-19 norms and dip in passenger footfall due to the second wave of the pandemic, CSMIA had reconsolidated all domestic passenger flights operating via terminal 2 (T2). However, due to increased travel demand and footfall of passengers at T2, airport officials re-commenced operations for GoAir, Air Asia, TruJet and Star Air from T1.

Moreover, with the steady rise in the number of passengers choosing to travel by air and with the festive season around the corner, IndiGo flights too will start operating out of T1 from October 31. To further smoothen passenger transit, all IndiGo flights with subset series 6E 5200 to 6E 5399 will operate from T1.

“The first week of T1 resuming operations saw passenger traffic with 57,382 passengers on weekdays and 37,334 weekends,” said the airport spokesperson.

Airport officials said that New Delhi, Goa and Bengaluru destinations contributed to the highest passenger traffic of which 19%, 29% and 20% respectively (from T1) during the week.

“CSMIA will be seeing an upward trajectory of IndiGo flights operating out of T1 from October 31st with subset series 6E 5200 to 6E 5399 (as on date), to further smoothen passenger transit,” the spokesperson added.

CSMIA, the world’s busiest single crossover runway airport, saw 91,904 travellers transiting through the airport in a single day (October 17), a record since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world.

On the same day, over 15,960 passengers travelled through T1 with 7,690 departing passengers and 8,270 passengers arriving. “On this day, CSMIA’s Terminal 1 catered to a total of 114 domestic flights whereas T2 catered to a total of 494 flights of which 415 were domestic and 79 flights on international routes,” CSMIA spokesperson added.

The last (pre-Covid) per day passenger record was seen in January 2020 when CSMIA handled a total of 138,999 passengers (domestic as well as international). Mumbai airport handled a total of 2,144,125 passengers and 17,292 flights (domestic and international passengers and flight included) in March 2020 after which the pandemic hit the sector and the country at large.