The main passenger terminal building at Bangalore Airport.
The main passenger terminal building at Bangalore Airport. Photo is copyrighted. Used with permission.

Kempegowda airport once again India’s third busiest

March 30, 2015 1 Comment 546 Views

Bangalore’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) is once again the third busiest airport in India after New Delhi IGI and Mumbai CSI airports. KIA has gone past Chennai to claim the top spot for southern India.

KIAB statistics

The airport will cross 15.24 million passengers for the fiscal year 2014-15 which ended on March 31, 2015. A 75% increase from the 8.24 million the airport commenced with in fiscal 2008-09, its first year of operation. The 2014-15 passenger traffic report released by airport operators Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. (BIAL) shows an overall passenger traffic increase of 19.3%, 21.4% domestic and 11.2% international.

Bangalore Kempegowda and HAL airports, traffic statistics.
Bangalore Kempegowda and HAL airports, traffic statistics.

Freight too, registered a growth of 15.9% overall, 25.3% domestic and 10% international, underlining the importance of air cargo in the high technology, food, pharma, and other high value, perishable products that dominate Bangalore’s industrial output. Like passengers, freight has grown 75%, from 160,000 metric tonnes annual to 280,000 tonnes, since the airport commenced operations. The airport cargo terminals are creating infrastructure to cater to cold chain requirements of industry.

Curiously aircraft movements (ATMs), have not registered a significant increase. ATMs rose 13.2% this fiscal year and a mere 18% since the airport opened. The growth in passenger numbers without a corresponding growth in aircraft movement reflects a growth of 48% in number of passengers per aircraft. This is due to the growth of low cost carriers which have higher passenger load factors and larger aircraft operating out of Bangalore. The ATR72-500 turbo-props which once were a common sight have all but disappeared from Bangalore after the demise of Kingfisher Airlines and the curtailment of ATR operations by Jet Airways at Bangalore.

About Vedant Agarwal

A frequent flyer for both work and pleasure - Vedant has held elite status on many of the major alliances and airlines. Also an avid aviation photographer, his pictures have been published in and on the covers of many international publications.

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One comment

  1. Shanky
    March 31, 2015 at 21:18

    Interesting ! Would this have been possible in HAL? Now perhaps best possible way to benefit the airport & airlines to have a “KIAL-shuttle” service from places like Hosur, Kolar, Tumkur, Flybus- seems not so attractive – timings/fares. Inside city- seems like a never ending mess to commute from south/east/west suburbs to KIAL/back.
    HAL:In the late 90s- It was so convenient to do a morning-evening BLR-DEL-BLR/BLR-BOM-BLR trip and commute by auto( max early morning fare 100 bucks). Save the expensive hotel in BOM/DEL + spend time at home and be fresh next day at work.
    KIAL: Crush sleep(skip potty), 1000+buck for taxi, 300 bucks for minimum breakfast, sleepy eyes in the meeting or travel previous night(add 3-5000bucks)+ return taxi 1000bucks + spouse yelling+kids-ask-who-are-you?
    Food/Beverages: I think all us travellers have sadly and quietly agreed to to the rip off- A family break fast will set you off by more than 1000bucks (business class/ kitty party/$$$ people fliers don’t read this please).
    Iam not complaining- just bare facts . Still KIAL – we like this as this is our home , we need to use this , complain and make it better!!

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