Amritsar airport records 82.1% growth in passenger traffic

Advertisement

Amritsar, April 29

The passenger footfall at Shri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport continues to rise, with the airport recording 25.16 lakh passengers in financial year 2022-2023 (April 2022 to March 2023), with an overall traffic growth of 82.1 per cent as compared to the previous FY2021-22 total of 13.82 lakh passengers.

The analysis of latest traffic figures released by the Airport Authority of India for March 2023 revealed that Amritsar also recorded its highest ever March month traffic total of 2,58,075 passengers surpassing the previous highest of 2,35,492 passengers recorded in March 2019. This new record for March is also the second highest for any month of the year, the highest is still 2,60,174 recorded for December 2018.

Sameep Singh Gumtala, convener of the FlyAmritsar Initiative, said that the biggest contributor was the highest ever monthly domestic passenger footfall of 178,723 in March 2023, a growth of 22.4 per cent from March 2022 with domestic aircraft movements also up by 14.9 per cent. The international traffic also recorded a strong growth of 61.4 per cent with 79,352 passengers in March 2023, as compared to 49,152 in March 2022 and international aircraft movements up by 38 per cent. The analysis also revealed that total passenger footfall of 25.16 lakh for FY 2022-23 is approximately 7,000 passengers less than the highest ever total of 25.23 lakh recorded in FY 2018-19 before the start of Covid-19 pandemic.

“The latest traffic figures of the airport are encouraging and very promising. The January to march 2023 quarter was the busiest in Amritsar’s history, with the total traffic at 7,34,212 comprising of 507,053 domestic and 227,159 international passengers. At this growth rate, we hope the total traffic for FY 2023-24 will exceed 30 lakh passengers, said Gumtala.

At present, 11 Indian and foreign airlines are operating over 400-weekly flight departures and arrivals to/from the airport, connecting it directly with 11 domestic and 10 international destinations across the globe, including London, Birmingham, Rome, Milan, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Sharjah and Doha. The FlyAmritsar initiative is committed to make efforts to further enhance the connectivity of Amritsar in 2023 by reaching out to executives of various airlines with detailed data and statistics.