Low fares, holidays spike Bangalore airport passenger traffic by 33% in June qtr

Passenger traffic at Bangalore international airport surged nearly 33 per cent to 8.02 million passenger in the June quarter over the year-ago period driven by holiday season and steep fare discounts, BIAL said today. The Airport, which has had flown 6.04 million passenger in the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal.

The NRI Prem Watsa-promoted Fairfax currently owns a 54 per cent stake in the joint venture company Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), while Siemens Projects Venture has 20 per cent holding. Karnataka State Industrial & Infrastructure Development Corp and Airports Authority of India (AAI) hold 13 per cent each in the venture.

The total number of passengers who passed through Bangalore airport in the first three months of the fiscal grew to 8.02 million from 6.04 million passengers, a growth of 32.9 per cent, during the corresponding period of FY17, the release said.

Domestic passengers volume spiked 35.8 per cent to 6.94 million while international traffic grew 16.8 per cent to 1.08 million during the quarter, primarily on the back of holiday season and special fare offers by airlines, it said.

According to the airport operator, it also notched up a daily record with 98,869 passengers arriving and departing on June 30, marking the busiest day at the aerodrome since start of operations.

"The key factors that have enabled us to deliver in such challenging times, are timely expansion of facilities and implementation of cutting edge technology and innovation, among others," said Hari Marar, managing director and chief executive officer, BIAL.

"As we move forward, our priorities will be to introduce innovative and digital solutions," he added.

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The aircraft movement went up by 32.9 percent, with a total of 58,054 arrivals and departures as against 43,673 movements last year, BIAL said in the release.

Besides, a record 97,486 metric tonnes of cargo was processed during the period as compared to 83,584 metric tonnes handled in the June quarter of last fiscal, an increase of 16.6 percent, it added.

As many as 33 passenger airlines eight domestic and 25 international airlines connected Bengaluru with 67 destinations (45 domestic and 22 international), during this period, the release said.