Courtesy: The Hindu

• It handled 4,39,743 passengers in 2006 

Mangalore, Feb 26: There is an increase in the number of passengers who travelled via Bajpe (Mangalore) airport of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in 2006 when compared to 2005.

According to sources in the AAI, the airport handled 4,39,743 passengers, including domestic and international, in 2006.

It had handled 2,76,709 domestic passengers in 2005. Citing reasons for the hike in the number of passengers, the sources said that the first international flight service from Mangalore to Dubai began in October last year.

In addition to this four new domestic flight services from the airport also began last year. The domestic services were started to Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

Kingfisher airlines introduced one service each to Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai while Air Deccan introduced its second flight between Mangalore and Bangalore last year.

The sources said that due to bad condition of the National Highway 48 people preferred to travel by the low cost airlines from Mangalore to Bangalore. Many companies in the city had also allowed their executives to travel by low cost airlines.

This had also contributed for the growth in passenger traffic at the airport, they said.

Service withdrawn

The sources said that Kingfisher Airlines had withdrawn its Mangalore-Chennai service from January this year. This was due to lack of availability of passengers to this sector.

Upward trend

There was an upward trend in the passenger traffic at the airport since 2003. The traffic went up from 2,01,653 in 2002 to 2,03,934 in 2003. It further increased to 2,63,880 in 2004, the sources said.

With more domestic and international services scheduled to begin from the airport in March and April this year, the passenger traffic at the airport was expected to go up further.

According to the sources, the airport, which was the second customs airport in the State after Bangalore, would emerge as the second major airport of the State by the year-end.