The Hindu Business Line : Airport freight traffic soars

The latest data collated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) show that while the total freight traffic touched 14,03,944 tonnes during April-March 2005-06 compared to 12,80,270 tonnes last year.

The big movers

The major increases were noticed at Tiruchi, which registered a whopping growth of 114.8 per cent, having handled 713 tonnes (332 tonnes) of freight during April-March 2005-06. Similarly, Bangalore handled 138,852 tonnes during April-March 2005-06 compared to 112,374 tonnes, recording a growth of 23.6 per cent while Chennai that handled 2,05,971 tonnes this year against 1,85,870 tonnes last year, recorded a growth of 10.8 per cent. The other airports that recorded major increase in freight traffic include Patna (37.2 per cent) and Delhi (11.2 per cent).

However, there were a few airports such as Kochi, Visakhapatnam and Madurai that recorded a decline during April-March 2005-06 compared to the previous period. While Visakhapatnam handled 504 tonnes of freight down from 670 tonnes during April-March 2004-05 thereby registering a decline of 24.8 per cent, Madurai registered a decline of 15.9 per cent having handled 361 tonnes during April-March 2005-06 compared to 429 tonnes. Similarly, Kochi that handled 21,237 tonnes during March-April 2005-06, registered a decline of 4.2 per cent over the previous year.

International traffic

In comparison, international freight traffic grew at a faster pace clocking a growth of 11.7 per cent at 920,150 tonnes during April-March 2005-06 compared to 823,608 tonnes. Tiruchi registered the highest growth in international freight traffic having handled 692 tonnes during April-March 2005-06 up from 301 tonnes, recording a growth of 129.9 per cent. Similarly, Coimbatore reported a growth of 102 per cent having handled 1,949 tonnes compared to 965 tonnes during April-March 2004-05.

The other southern airports that registered a growth in international freight traffic include Bangalore that recorded a growth of 27.3 per cent having handled 81,991 tonnes and Hyderabad 21.7 per cent having handled 16,949 tonnes.

In contrast, Kozhikode registered a decline in international freight of 2.3 per cent having handled 9,193 tonnes down from 9,411 tonnes recorded the previous year.

In comparison, the overall growth of domestic freight traffic at 483,794 tonnes compared to 456,662 tonnes was more modest at 5.9 per cent during April-March 2005-06 compared to the previous year.

While some airports in the South such as Cochin International Airport Limited recorded a growth of 26.9 per cent having handled 5,031 tonnes of domestic freight up from 3,965 tonnes during April-March 2004-05 and Bangalore a growth of 18.6 per cent at 56,861 tonnes, many airports in the South that recorded a fall — Tiruchi (-32.3 per cent), Visakhapatnam (-24.8 per cent), Madurai (-15.9 per cent) and Coimbatore (-10.1 per cent).