Pune: Pune has been experiencing phenomenal growth in the past several years. This demand was complemented by the increase in flights from Pune resulting in remarkable growth in not just the passenger numbers but also in cargo and the number of flight movements.
According to an economic report tabled on Monday at Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai, Pune is the fastest growing airport in terms of domestic traffic in the State surpassing Mumbai in terms of increase in percentage in 2017 and 2018.
As per the report, Pune airport recorded phenomenal growth in the past two years. In 2017, the airport recorded 65.12 lakh in passengers’ traffic growth. In 2018, the airport recorded 78.92 lakh with 21.2 per cent growth.
However, the Mumbai airport recorded 327.12 lakh in 2017 and 348.50 lakh in 2018 in passengers’ traffic, which is only 6.5 per cent growth.
The Nagpur airport recorded 17.82 lakh in 2017 and 20.80 lakh in 2018. The report reveals that cargo growth is higher than that of the Mumbai airport.
The Pune airport recorded 34,645 metric tonnes in 2017 and 41,515 metric tonnes in 2018 with 19.8 per cent growth. Similarly, the Mumbai airport recorded 2,34,917 metric tonnes in 2017 and 2,58,356 in 2018 which is 10 per cent growth.
“Pune is a fast growing city with continued economic development and has great potential for passenger and cargo growth. We are continuously upgrading infrastructure to sustain growth. State government’s land is required on priority basis to provide infrastructure for midterm and the new airport is necessary for long term growth,” Pune Airport Director Ajay Kumar told Sakal Times.
The double digit growth recorded by Pune airport is far more than that of Mumbai because Pune airport meets the demands of passengers and airlines and succeeded in accommodating additional flights which translated into an increase in passengers and cargo growth.
This demand was complemented by the increase in the number of flights from Pune that resulted in remarkable growth in not just the passenger numbers but also in cargo and the number of flight movements. The aircraft movement from Pune airport has almost doubled in 5 years, from 30,534 movements in 2013-14 to 59,870 movements in 2018-19, while the YoY growth in 2018-19 has been 6.8 per cent in spite of the operational restrictions. The fact that 3,849 additional flights were operated in 2018-19 from Pune airport as compared to the previous year speaks for the strong growth, said aviation expert and analyst Dharyashil Vandekar.
Apart from the increase in the number of flights, the reason for the increase in passenger numbers have also been that the new flights were started on routes experiencing heavy passenger demand. This growth would have been far more and Pune airport would have achieved the 10 million passengers’ mark but for the flight cancellations witnessed at Lohegaon airport by airlines like Lufthansa, Jet Airways, Spice Jet, Indigo etc, due to various reasons like operational, financial crisis, shortage of operating crew and recently, due grounding of Boeing 737 Max 8 aircrafts by Directorate General of Civil Aviation on safety grounds, he said.
