E-Paper
Prayagraj airport handles 2.23 lakh passengers till May 31
Airport officials attribute increased passenger footfall to better services and greater air connectivity
The Prayagraj airport now handles flights to and from a dozen Indian cities and with the enhanced facilities at the airport, its popularity among air passengers can be ascertained by the ever-increasing volume of air traffic. In the first five months of this year (January to May 2022), the number of air passengers using Prayagraj airport has crossed 2.23 lakh.
In the last four years, since the airport started its operations in 2019, the numbers of air passengers have never been so high in the first five months of a year. In fact, the second best figure is of merely 1.62 lakh, said AAI officials citing official data.
Since the Prayagraj airport started operations on January 1, 2019, the number of passengers using the airport has been increasing each year barring 2020. In 2020, the number of passengers dropped in comparison to preceding year mainly because of the pandemic and its resulting restrictions. In 2019, 1,38,299 passengers had used the airport in the first 5 months, which came down to 1,22,565 in 2020 and now it has increased to an all-time high of 2,23,191, the officials said.
If the number of passengers counted from January 1 to June 5 this year is taken into account, a total of 2.31 lakh passengers have been catered to by the Prayagraj airport.
The increasing number of passenger traffic has made the authorities of Airport Authority of India (AAI) quite buoyant. It is not only the increased volume of air passengers but even the number of flights that have increased over the years. Since January 1, 2020, to June 5, 3,327 flights have operated from this airport.
“We are happy to provide the best facilities to air passengers and the increased volume of air passengers shows that a greater number of passengers are satisfied with the facilities provided by us,” said the officiating director (regional) of AAI at Prayagraj, RR Pandey.
Currently, Indigo Airlines and Alliance Air operate flights to a dozen cities between them, including Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Indore, Bhopal, Dehradun, Gorakhpur and Bilaspur.
Officials also said that the airlines providing air connectivity to and from Prayagraj have started the process of undertaking a survey for starting a direct flight from Prayagraj to Chennai, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad also. The airlines are surveying the traffic load, timing slots etc so that direct flights can be operated in the coming months.
Likewise, Jet Airways can also start its operation from Prayagraj airport. Jet Airways had started operations from the Prayagraj airport in 2019 when it was operating a direct flight to Lucknow, Patna, Indore and Nagpur. If Jet Airways restarts its operation, it is quite likely that it will start flights for Nagpur and Patna.
