Aircraft movement goes up by 37 per cent in 2008

Raviprasad Kamila The Hindu

Passenger traffic at Bajpe airport rises by 7.6 pc
The year witnessed an increase in air fares owing to revision in fuel prices
Air India Express introduced flight services to Sharjah, Kuwait last year
MANGALORE: The passenger traffic at Mangalore airport registered a 7.6 per cent increase in 2008. Aircraft movements went up by 37 per cent in the year, compared to 2007.
This was despite the factors such as rise in airfares, global meltdown, and inconvenience to passengers travelling to Bangalore caused by the shifting of domestic aircraft operations from HAL airport to the distant Devanahalli airport in Bangalore in 2008. Director of the airport M.R. Vasudeva told The Hindu that international passenger traffic registered 34.78 per cent increase and the international aircraft movements, including arrival and departure, went up by 117 per cent. Domestic passenger traffic went up by 0.74 per cent, while the domestic flight movement registered 25.7 per cent growth, he said.
Both international passenger traffic and international flight movements increased as the Air India Express began operating flight services to Sharjah and Kuwait from Mangalore. The number of West Asian cities having air-connectivity to Mangalore went up from five to seven. The other West Asian cities having flight connectivity from here were Dubai, Abudhabi, Bahrain, Doha and Muscat spread across five West Asian countries, the director said.Domestic traffic
The reason for a paltry 0.74 per cent rise in domestic passenger traffic was attributed to suspension of Jet Airways daily flights from here to Bangalore for 30 days in November last. Pramod Nair, Mangalore station manager, Jet Airways, said that the airliner had suspended its daily morning flight and daily evening flight to Bangalore from November 1 to 30, resulting in a loss of 60 aircraft movements.
Sources in the airport said that domestic traffic fell from 50,345 passengers in November, 2007 to 48,301 passengers in the corresponding month of 2008 as there was a reduction in the daily flights to Bangalore. In December, the domestic passenger traffic increased from 52,977 in 2007 to 62,865 in 2008.
Airliners had increased fares to Bangalore and Mumbai last year owing to rise in aviation fuel prices. This was one of the major reasons for the least increase in domestic passenger traffic, sources said.