Jaipur airport registers negative passenger traffic growth in March

For the first time in three years, the Jaipur international airport has registered a negative passenger growth for March 2018 as compared to the previous months despite rise in passenger traffic in April, it was still lesser than that in February and January.

In February, the airport registered total passenger traffic of 4.55 lakh that dropped to 4.11 lakh in March and moved up marginally to 4.16 lakh in April.

Airport officials have attributed the temporary dip in passenger traffic to the construction of a taxi track that disrupted a number of flights. The airport remained closed between 10.30 and to 6 pm every day in March and at the night in April and May, some of them said.

“Due to the taxi track construction, operations of 13 flights were stopped while some flights were rescheduled,” an airport official, who did not want to be named, said.

The number of flights that had reached 67 in February dropped to 54 in March while the number of operational flights in April climbed to 62, the official said.

The passenger traffic, however, has registered a positive growth year-on-year. The domestic passenger traffic from Jaipur airport was 42.29 lakh as compared to 33.32 lakh in 2016-17 showing a growth of 26.9%.

The growth of international passengers during the period was 16.9% with the number climbing to 5.27 lakh as compared to 4.50 lakh in 2016-17.

At present, there are five international and 19 domestic flights from Jaipur airport.

By 2022, the Jaipur airport will have a swanky new terminal, more than seven times larger than the existing T2 terminal with modern amenities.

Work for the ₹1,400 crore project has been awarded and will commence by December 2018. The new terminal is scheduled to be completed in three years after the commencement of work.

At present, the area of terminal 2 is 18,000 sqm while the new terminal will be spread over 1.25 lakh sqm.