BENGALURU: In the midst of the gloom pervading the aviation industry in the country and major airlines reporting heavy losses last week, the Belagavi airport is showing good signs of revival. It operates regular flights to Bengaluru apart from eight other cities under the UDAN (Regional Connectivity Scheme) project.
"Flight movement at Airport Authority of India’s Belagavi airport is witnessing an upward trend since the resumption of domestic flight operations. From no flight in April to 432 flights in August, the growth underlines the faith travellers have in AAI,” the Authority said in a tweet on Sunday.
Substantiating it with stats, the AAI said Belagavi airport had recorded 17,917 passengers in August and had operated 432 flights.
It began operations on May 26 recording just 439 passengers during that month and then touched 9,811 passengers in June. It then climbed to 14,162 in July before touching 17,917 passengers in August, it illustrated.
Rajesh Kumar Maurya, Airport Director, Belagavi airport told TNIE, "Our numbers are clearly on the rise. Next to Bengaluru, Belagavi is recording the highest traffic in Karnataka. For the month of September, we have already recorded a domestic passenger traffic of 14,000 flyers are likely to cross 25,000 figure this month.”
Nearly 50% of the traffic is because the district is a hub for armed forces.
“They fly to Hyderabad from here and then to Delhi before eading to border areas,” he said.
It has been 118 days since we commenced operations on May 26 here. “Till yesterday (Saturday), we have 58,500 passengers arriving and eparting here. Another achievement is that a single person has been found to be COVID positive,” Maurya added that the stats before covid struck (Feb 2020) were around 38,000 passengers. “It is a matter of time. We will reach there in a couple of months,” the Director said.
Apart from Bengaluru, this oldest airport of North Karnataka serves Mumbai, Indore, Cuddappa, Mysuru, Tirupati, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad presently under the UDAAN-3 scheme.
Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in a tweet on domestic air traffic scenario in India pointed out that things were getting towards normal operations. “With 1,42,858 domestic passengers on 1440 flights nd total footfalls of 2,85,694 passengers at all airports on 19 Sept, 2020, we are slowly flying towards the pre-covid numbers.”