Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The COVID-19 outbreak forced airline operators to reduce flights and thus a steep decline in the number of air passengers has been recorded since then. However, things are changing for the better now. The flight service at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar is witnessing an improvement and the strength of passengers is also scaling up. The airport made a record on Friday as a total of 2,627 passengers travelled in and out (arrived and departed) of the city. This is reported to be the highest number in a single day since the pandemic situation.
On Friday, 1334 passengers arrived and 1293 passengers departed from the Chikalthana Airport through nine flights. A day before (on October 24), the strength of arrival and departure of passengers was 1013 and 903 respectively.
Set to cross the 60K passengers mark
The chairman of ATDF’s Civil Aviation Committee, Sunit Kothari said, “ The data of the Chikalthana Airport depicts that the arrival load is 100 per cent and the departure load is 97 per cent. The airport is set to cross the 60,000-passenger mark in October 2024. This will be the highest passenger footfall after December 2019 (Pre-Covid era). The citizens (passengers) are extending their overwhelming support and patronage to all airlines flying in and out of the historic city.”
Rise in passengers
Director of Chikalthana Airport, Sharad Yevale, said, “ The strength of flights operated from the airport was more before the COVID-19 period. However, after the pandemic, the strength of air passengers is increasing. The flights are taking off from the airport with full of passengers.”
Box
In the last year, the air passenger figure increased from 3 lakhs to 6 lakhs. Presently, nine flights (including two of Air India) are operated from the city to various destinations like Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
In 2022-23, a total of 3.93 lakh passengers travelled from the airport through 4094 flights, while in its consecutive year (2023-24), 6.09 lakh passengers travelled through 5210 flights.