With the commissioning of Ayodhya airport and launch of regular services from January 6, religious tourism in the country will get a boost. However, data from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) shows that domestic air traffic in temple towns of Shirdi and Tirupati declined on a year-on-year(y-o-y) basis between April-November in FY24. On the other hand, Amritsar and Varanasi saw a y-o-y increase in air traffic.

While there is no dearth of devotees visiting Shirdi and Tirupati, air traffic is lower due to a reduction of flights by SpiceJet. The addition of flights from Nashik (90 kilometres from Shirdi) is another possible reason for the decline in traffic, Ameya Joshi, founder of aviation blog Network Thoughts said.

Between April-November, the Shirdi airport handled 4,40,998 domestic passengers which is nearly 8 per cent lower than the same period last year. Tirupati airport handled 5,67,023 passengers which was 5 per cent lower over the same period. Amritsar and Varanasi airports received 12,88,238 and 18,77, 413 passengers respectively, a gain of over 18 per cent and 20 per cent. “We are in discussions with SpiceJet and other airlines to start new services to Shirdi,” said Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) Managing Director, Swati Pandey. 

New integrated terminal

MADC which runs the Shirdi airport has invited bids for the construction of the new integrated terminal building. “Shirdi Airport has been successful in attracting traffic from across the country. The current terminal can handle 300 passengers per hour and the new facility will handle 1,200 passengers. It will have custom and immigration facilities too and is expected to be completed in two to two-and-half-years,” Pandey added. 

The Shirdi Airport has nine aircraft parking bays and MADC is also pitching them to airlines for night parking of planes. In Tirupati, efforts are on to get international connectivity. Local MP M Gurumoorthy is pushing the cause with airlines and the Centre. The Tirupati Airport was designated for international operations in 2017 but it doesn’t have a single international flight.  AAI will also be approaching the State police to provide staff to man immigration counters following requests for charter flights from Singapore.

Work of extending Tirupati airport’s runway from 2,285 metres to 3,810 metres was put on track after the handover of over 3.4 acres of State government land to AAI in August. Longer runways will enable the operation of wide-body planes. The full length will be available after removal of extra high tension power line located in approach path of the runway, said Tirupati’s airport director Basava Raju.

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