Mumbai airport clocks 4-fold growth in passenger traffic

Mumbai: The onset of the festive season coupled with some countries easing visa and travel curbs helped Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) to post a nearly four-fold growth of passenger traffic in August.

CSMIA handled 16-lakh passengers in August this year, the private airport operator said on Tuesday. Of this, the domestic passenger segment accounted for almost 90 per cent, while international was a little over 10 per cent, amid a ban on scheduled international flight operations from late March 2020, and only a limited number of air services being allowed on overseas routes under various special arrangements and pacts.

In August 2020, the country's second busiest airport handled 4-lakh passengers. The authority expects an upward trend in leisure travel both on domestic and international routes in the coming months, with the ensuing festival and holiday season, it said in a release. The authority played host to a total of approximately 15,87,150 passengers with flights from across domestic and international destinations in August, it said in a release.

With the festive season just around the corner and with countries across the globe easing down travel restrictions, August witnessed a surge in the number of passengers travelling through CSMIA, it stated. Of the total passengers, 14,02,369 were domestic and the remaining 1,84,787 passengers were international passengers, it said, adding that about 7,85,479 passengers arrived at the CSMIA, while 8,01,677 flew out to various domestic and international destinations in the previous month.