Tirupati airport sees huge growth in flights, footfalls after 2 years

Tirupati: Air passenger footfall at Tirupati airport has been continuously increasing after the pandemic and even crossed the pre-Covid levels. The number of domestic passengers from this airport has dipped significantly during the previous two years due to lockdown and Covid fears thereafter. Accordingly, the number of flights also witnessed a steep fall during that time.

However, with the rise in passenger footfall, during April to September 2022 a total of 5,179 aircraft were operated to different destinations from Tirupati airport as against 3,064 during the same period in the previous year.

Further, only 1,002 flight operations took place during April to September 2020 during which the country witnessed lockdowns and restricted movement after that.

Still, Tirupati airport is yet to surpass the pre-Covid level of operations with 5,502 aircraft during April to September 2019. It shows a decline of 5.87 per cent in the total aircraft movement during the period under consideration. However, the passenger footfall in the same period witnessed a surge of 3.47 per cent from the pre-Covid level of April-September 2019 to this year.

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) data reveals that a total of 4,54,640 passengers have travelled through the airport during the first half of the current fiscal while it was 4,39,362 in the corresponding period of 2019.

Certainly, it is a welcome indication of further growth in both in number of flight operations and passenger footfalls compared to the bad period of two years in between. In the first half of the 2020-21 fiscal, the airport could handle only 59,216 passengers though it improved in the next year to reach 2,14,400 passengers.

Significantly, in August 2022, the airport had 850 flight operations through which it handled 78,902 passengers. But this has shown a little decline in the next month with only 774 aircraft movements handling 63,631 passengers. An air travel operator said that it can be attributed to higher fares and seasonal factors. Despite the ever increasing flight movements and passenger footfalls, it has remained as an international airport for name sake only without any international operations. Indications are that it still has a long way to go to get international flights and passengers.