Mumbai airport handled over 3 million passengers in October due to growth in domestic traffic and addition of new flights to Abu Dhabi and Paris in the last few months.
Monthly passenger traffic crossed 3 million mark for the first time ever in May and second time in October. Domestic traffic accounts for 68% of the total and rest is international traffic.
In 2013-14 Mumbai airport handled about 32 million passengers and is second busies airport after but Delhi which handled 36.9 million passengers in the same period.
According to Mumbai International Airport Limited spokesperson the airport handled 3.04 million passengers in October and 3.15 million passengers in May. Previously the highest traffic movement was witnessed last December when it handled 2.9 million passengers.
Delhi, Bangalore and Goa are the busiest domestic routes while Dubai, London and Singapore are the busiest international routes form Mumbai.
Paris, Abu Dhabi and Kathmandu showed the fastest traffic growth amongst the international routes in April-September period. Passenger volume grew over 90 percent. Locally Amritsar, Kozhikode and Patna/Ranchi showed the fastest growth during this period and traffic to Amritsar was up 90 percent.
” The year 2014 is been an eventful year at Mumbai airport as it witnessed the inauguration of the iconic Terminal 2. Passenger numbers have seen record high during May and October this year. Growth has resulted due to Airbus A380 operations, additional frequencies to UAE, Paris, Colombo, Kathmandu Bangkok and new services by airlines like Malindo, Druk and flydubai,” MIAL spokesperson added.
Mumbai lost its number one rank to Delhi in 2009-10 due to capacity constraints and delays in modernisation of airport.
While Delhi airport with three runways handles 950 flights a day, Mumbai airport handles around 760 flights.
Mumbai airport has two intersecting runways which limits runway movements. The main runway has a capacity of 45 movements and can handle upto 48 movements a hour. The secondary runway has a capacity to handle 30-32 flights a hour. Simulatenous operations are not carried out. Sources said there are further limitations to increase air traffic movement. According to an official it will be difficult to increase aircraft movements beyond 50 per hour.
