Chennai: After two years of declining passenger numbers, there’s a largely ‘positive’ sign on the horizon, a little past Meenambakkam, where the new airport terminals stand tall. Since 2011 Chennai airport has registered a miniscule growth (of 1 per cent) in passenger traffic for the first time.
Carrying 20 lakh more passengers may not be a reason to cheer aloud for the average airport administration. But after a rough patch of declining numbers, mounting expenditure, glass panels falling every other day and infrastructural mishaps across the complex - it’s celebration time.
In the financial year 2013-14 the airport handled 12.90 million passengers, which is a shade over the 12.77 million people who flew through in 2012-13. “It will take a while to reach the growth percentage numbers that we managed to show in 2007 and 2009 but this is a promising sign,” said a jubilant operations official with the Airports Authority of India (AAI). International air travel has improved considerably, with 4.54 million passengers flying in and out of the city this year as opposed to the 4.46 million who did so last year. “Domestic travel has not picked up much and we anticipate that it will go up only when the economy improves. Domestic travel survives on business trips and holidays,” said travel agent Ayesha R.
13/05/14 Daniel Thimmayya/New Indian Express
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
Carrying 20 lakh more passengers may not be a reason to cheer aloud for the average airport administration. But after a rough patch of declining numbers, mounting expenditure, glass panels falling every other day and infrastructural mishaps across the complex - it’s celebration time.
In the financial year 2013-14 the airport handled 12.90 million passengers, which is a shade over the 12.77 million people who flew through in 2012-13. “It will take a while to reach the growth percentage numbers that we managed to show in 2007 and 2009 but this is a promising sign,” said a jubilant operations official with the Airports Authority of India (AAI). International air travel has improved considerably, with 4.54 million passengers flying in and out of the city this year as opposed to the 4.46 million who did so last year. “Domestic travel has not picked up much and we anticipate that it will go up only when the economy improves. Domestic travel survives on business trips and holidays,” said travel agent Ayesha R.
13/05/14 Daniel Thimmayya/New Indian Express
