Passenger traffic at Mumbai airport on Sun highest since Mar 23'20

Mumbai, Oct 20 (PTI) The city's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA), handled a record over 91,000 travellers on October 17 in a single day, the highest passenger volume since March 23 last year when scheduled international flight services were suspended to and from India.

Two days later on March 25, the domestic air services were also halted as the government announced a nation-wide lockdown to deal with the pandemic at that time.

While the ban on operations of flight services on the local routes was lifted on May 25, 2020, scheduled flights services on the overseas routes have still not been restored.

With an increased vaccination rate, a sharp reduction in the number of Covid-19 infection cases and further easing of travel restrictions, there has been a steady rise in the number of passengers choosing to travel by air, said in a release on Wednesday.

After nearly one-and-a-half years, since the commencement of the pandemic in 2020, Mumbai Airport, which is the second largest such facility in the country after Delhi's IGIA, witnessed a record 91,904 passengers on October 17, which is the highest movement since March 23, 2020, the CSMIA said.

Of these, around 75,944 passengers travelled through Terminal 2 (T2) with 37,315 passengers arriving at the CSMIA, while 38,629 passengers departed through the airport. Another 15,960 passengers travelled through Terminal 1(T1) with 7,690 departing passengers and 8,270 passengers arriving at the CSMIA, it said, adding on this day, Terminal-1 catered to a total of 114 domestic flights and T2 handling 494 flights.

Of the 494 flights operated from T2, 415 were domestic while the rest 79 international, it added.

Mumbai Airport has two terminals T1 and T2. Terminal-1 caters to domestic passengers and Terminal-2 has international services besides domestic operations of some of the Indian airlines. The Mumbai Airport has two terminals T1 and T2. Terminal-1 caters to domestic passengers and Terminal-2 has international services besides domestic operations of some of the Indian airlines.

After the deadly second wave this year, the private airport operator had consolidated all operations at T2 in mid-April. The passenger traffic movement from T1 was restored from October 13 in a phased manner. PTI IAS MR MR