Steady surge in passenger and flight traffic at Kalaburagi Airport

Hubballi: Notwithstanding the overall downturn in the country’s economy, many airports in tier-2 cities have witnessed an uptick in traffic. Kalaburagi Airport, for instances, is fast-emerging as a key nodal point on the aviation map of Karnataka, if one is to go by the average number of passengers per flight at the terminal. Between April and July, 36 passengers, on average, are boarding or alighting from each flight at the airport.More importantly, more flights were operated between Kalaburagi and other cities in Karnataka such as Mangaluru, Belagavi, Hubballi, Bengaluru and Mysuru during the same period this year compared to 2020.
Data sourced from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) shows that as many as 691 flights were operated at the Kalaburagi Airport between April and July, while 24,839 passengers travelled on board them. Although more passengers used Belagavi Airport during the same period – 73,071 – the average number of passengers per flight was higher in Kalaburagi, at 36, while the number for Belagavi stood at 32, followed by Hubballi (31) and Mysuru (18).
Between April and July this year, 9,716 flights operated out of Bengaluru, with nearly 30 lakh passengers passing through its turnstiles, while 1.7 lakh passengers travelled on board 545 flights that operated out of Mangaluru International Airport in this period.