Raviprasad Kamila / The Hindu
Mangalore, Jul 22: There has been a marginal decline in overall passenger traffic at the Mangalore airport in the first half of this year vis-À-vis the corresponding period last year.
International traffic at the airport, which is operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), went up during the period, contrary to the general perception that the global economic meltdown might have affected it. But there was decline in domestic traffic during the first six months of this year.
Sources in the airport at Bajpe told The Hindu that the decline in domestic passenger traffic might be due to the hike in air fares and shifting of domestic flight operations from HAL Airport to Bangalore International Airport at Devanahalli in Bangalore from May 24, 2008. Considering the commuting time between Bangalore city and the new airport, many domestic passengers preferred other modes of transport between the two cities, the sources said.
Overall passenger traffic at the Mangalore airport decreased by 0.39 per cent during the first six months of this year. The number of passengers arriving in and departing from Mangalore airport was 3,63,917 last year. It came down to 3,62,480 this year.
Statistics show that the number of international passengers arriving in and departing from the airport went up from 86,921 last year to 1.15 lakh this year. Domestic passenger traffic came down from from 2.76 lakh to 2.47 lakh. Sources said that the airport witnessed a steady growth in annual passenger traffic between 2002 and 2008. It was 2.02 lakh in 2002, 2.03 lakh in 2003, 2.64 lakh in 2004, 2.77 lakh in 2005, 4.52 lakh in 2006, 4.8 lakh in 2007 and 7.07 lakh in 2008.
Aircraft movements (arrivals and departures) too came down from 6,156 in the first half of last year to 5,630 this year, the sources added.
The Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) has laid a concrete road to the new terminal building site of the AAI at Kenjar. This road connects the new terminal building site with Mangalore-Bajpe-Kateel State Highway 66. J.R. Lobo, Deputy Project Director, KUIDFC, told The Hindu that the two-lane concrete road was 875 m long and 7 m wide.
In addition, the KUIDFC had extended the Mangalore-Bajpe-Kateel tar road by 1.1 km towards the city from the junction where the concrete road joined it.
The road had been laid at an estimated cost of Rs. 7.8 crore. Mr. Lobo said that the KUIDFC had completed the road ahead of the completion of the new terminal building by the AAI. Sources said that once the new terminal building was commissioned, the distance between the city and the airport would be reduced by 8 km.