Air passenger traffic at Tirupati airport picks up

Tirupati: The passenger traffic has been gradually increasing at Tirupati airport for the past few days with the significant drop in Covid cases.

At least, 16 flight movements could be seen per day which have been experiencing about 30 per cent increased occupancy rate. Compared to the corresponding period last year there was a significant improvement this year as there were no restrictions on flight movements during the partial curfew period too.

According to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) traffic data, the number of passengers has gone up steadily from a mere 916 in May 2020 to 22,322 in September and further to 58,029 by January 2021.

It reached a peak of 65,110 in March 2021 with 855 flight movements. However, due to the Covid second wave, it has witnessed a steep fall in the next two months to register 37,634 passengers in April and 6,698 in May.

Accordingly, the number of flight movements have declined from 855 in March to 702 in April and to 228 in May. Both the number of passengers and flight movements have witnessed slight increase in June as the Covid cases started receding and continuing the momentum now. In June a total of 138 flights were operated with 276 movements while 17041 passengers travelled through the airport.

When contacted, Tirupati Airport Director S Suresh told The Hans India that at present the Airport was getting at least eight arrivals and eight departures per day as of now. While five flights are being operated between Tirupati and Hyderabad by various airlines, one service each are there to Gulbarga, Hubli and Delhi.

During weekends, depending on the demand, 2-3 more services are being run between Tirupati and Hyderabad. Air India is planning to resume its service to Delhi soon while Indigo flight is already there. The services to Bengaluru and Vijayawada are yet to be resumed during the post-Covid scenario.

To a question, he said Indigo is offering a connecting flight between Tirupati to Varanasi with some layover time at Hyderabad airport for which passengers can take boarding pass directly to Varanasi.

Spice Jet is planning to start a new service between Pune-Tirupati-Pune soon and expects some more flights to other destinations in the coming days. The much awaited cargo services at the airport may be launched in another two months.