International passengers have been emerging as the mainstay for the growth of traffic in Mangalore airport. Though nearly one-third of the Mangalore airport's passenger traffic was contributed by international passengers in 2011, the international traffic went up by only 4.10 per cent during the period. A notified customs aerodrome, Mangalore airport has connectivity to several destinations in West Asia. However, it is yet to get the international tag. The airport handled 8.47 lakh passengers in 2011 as against 8.22 lakh in 2010. The share of international passengers to the total passengers increased from 2.36 lakh (constituting 28.77 per cent) in 2010 to 2.46 lakh (29.05 per cent) in 2011.

Mr Rajesh Sequera, Coordinator of the UAE-based Karnataka NRI Forum, attributed the flat growth in international traffic to the connecting flight facilities offered by other airlines. (Air India Express is the only carrier operating direct flights from Mangalore to other destinations in West Asia.)

He told Business Line that now international passengers have started using connecting flights offered by Jet and Kingfisher from centres such as Mumbai and Kozhikode, as they find cost advantage in that.

“Although Air India Express is a low-cost carrier, they charge exorbitantly during seasons. Because of recession, many passengers with family prefer to save money by cutting cost,” he said. The growth in domestic passenger segment was only 2.68 per cent during 2011. The airport handled 6.01 lakh domestic passengers in 2011 as against 5.95 lakh in 2010. Sources in the aviation sector said here that this was in spite of Kingfisher cancelling its flight to Mumbai from Mangalore. They attribute this growth to the addition of new destinations such as Hyderabad and Chennai by SpiceJet. Otherwise, the growth would have been still lower, they added.

>vinayakaj@thehindu.co.in

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