By Japan K Pathak
Ahmedabad airport is now India’s 8th busiest international airport – down from earlier 7th position which is now occupied by Cochin airport.
This has been revealed in figures available from minister’s answer in parliament recently.
Fresh figures suggest that Ahmedabad airport is less busier than the airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Cochin. While Cochin has stepped ahead in this ranking, Ahmedabad is one step down. Gauhati and Thiruvananthpuram follows Ahmedabad in busiest airport data. This data includes all landings and take offs of domestic, international, general aviation and private chartered flights.
Among all international airports of India, Delhi airport is busiest with average 741 movements per day between April-December 2010. Delhi is followed by Mumbai airport with 695 movements. Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta, Hyderabad had 316, 304, 259 and 229 average daily movements respectively in same period.
Figure of Ahmedabad airport’s daily average movement is 106 which is less than half compare to similar size of cities such as Hyderabad and Bangalore. Even Cochin has higher number of movements(112) compare to Ahmedabad.
It should be mentioned that the figure of aviation movements on any given airport shows city’s connection with the world outside. While Hyderabad and Bangalore were once far behind the city of Ahmedabad, today they enjoy greater connectivity with the world through air-route, perhaps due to development of information technology industry there. While Hyderabad airport is double busier than Ahmedabad, the airport in Bangalore is three time more busier than Ahmedabad.
One of the reasons behind Ahmedabad airport’s somewhat boring situation is that entire south Gujarat prefers to go to the Mumbai airport due to lesser distance. Another thing is that Gujarati people still prefer to travel by train. While Bangalore and Hyderabad get daily international traffic throughout the year due to I.T. industry, Ahmedabad gets prominent foreign traffic just in winter due to NRI Gujaratis.
While Ahmedabad airport witnessed daily average 17 international movements, in same period Cochin’s figure was 51(three times more), Hyderabad(38), Calicut(38), Bangalore(42) and Trivendrum(46). Considering the international traffic, Ahmedabad’s 10th busiest airport in India and even Calicut and Trivendrum are ahead. In domestic sector, Ahmedabad is 7th busiest airport with 75 movements.
In backdrop of these figures, the state government’s decision to develop a green-field international airport at Dholera creates doubt that whether it is a fisible project or not! Ahmedabad’s new international terminal is just minorly utilized presently, and it has been constructed citing the traffic of future. In such scenario the state government wants to develop new international airport at Dholera which is 80 km away from Ahmedabad. Insiders say ‘Dholera airport’ project is nothing but a tool to increase land prices in southern part of Ahmedabad district where politicians have cornered huge land.
AVERAGE NUMBER OF FLIGHTS HANDLED PER DAY AT INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORTS (April-December 2010) (in Nos.)
| SL.NO | AIRPORT | AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS* | ||||
| INT’L | DOM | TOTAL | GEN.AVIATION | G.TOTAL | ||
| 1 | DELHI (DIAL) | 200 | 486 | 686 | 55 | 741 |
| 2 | MUMBAI (MIAL) | 187 | 473 | 659 | 36 | 695 |
| 3 | CHENNAI | 89 | 211 | 300 | 16 | 316 |
| 4 | BANGALORE (BIAL) | 42 | 261 | 303 | 1 | 304 |
| 5 | KOLKATA | 37 | 218 | 255 | 4 | 259 |
| 6 | HYDERABAD (GHIAL) | 38 | 186 | 224 | 3 | 227 |
| 7 | COCHIN (CIAL) | 51 | 58 | 110 | 2 | 112 |
| 8 | AHMEDABAD | 17 | 75 | 91 | 15 | 106 |
| 9 | GUWAHATI | 1 | 72 | 72 | 14 | 86 |
| 10 | TRIVANDRUM | 46 | 21 | 67 | 3 | 70 |
| 11 | NAGPUR (MIPL) | 1 | 40 | 41 | 25 | 66 |
| 12 | GOA | 9 | 54 | 63 | 3 | 66 |
| 13 | CAILCUT38 | 38 | 9 | 46 | 0 | 47 |
| 14 | JAIPUR | 7 | 33 | 40 | 10 | 49 |
| 15 | SRINAGAR | 0 | 24 | 24 | 2 | 27 |
| 16 | AMRITSAR | 12 | 12 | 24 | 2 | 26 |
| 17 | PORTBLAIR | 0 | 18 | 18 | 0 | 18 |
|
* Aircraft movements include both landing & take off. |
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the real problem is there is no adequate filigh from other parts of world to ahmedabad. this congress has problem with gujarat because of ghandhiji and shri sardar patel.
i would suggest let start gujart base air lience service. it will be going to most success. just like how gujarat government has oil field only in india.
[Reply]
the real problem is there is no adequate filigh from other parts of world to ahmedabad. this congress has problem with gujarat because of ghandhiji and shri sardar patel.
i would suggest let start gujart base air liens service. it will be going to most success. just like how gujarat government has oil field only in india.
[Reply]
Vivek Reply:
March 25th, 2011 at 11:11 am
db,
I am sorry but I do not agree with you. None of the cities that are ahead of Ahmedabad in air traffic has its regional airline. Airlines will fly if they find that a particular route is profitable. Overall industrial growth will certainly lead to higher air traffic. For industrial growth you need excellent governance (I believe we have that in place), abundant and skillful human talent (Gujarat needs to do a lot more in this area), industry friendly policies (it is there, but it can be improved further), excellent infrastructure (Gujarat has better infrastructure that many other states, but lot more needs to be done). Such measures will yield results in 5-10 years. Sorry, I don’t think there is any short term solution.
Another problem for the air traffic is that most of the travelers from South Gujarat head to Mumbai. One solution is to provide excellent bus / rail connectivity from Ahmedabad Airport to major cities in Gujarat. This is very much doable.
If we have one airport that serves say 70% of Gujarat and not just Ahmedabad, it is bound to witness much more traffic than what we have right now.
On a separate note, I see many people passing the buck to government. We have well functioning state government in place. However, government alone can not do wonders unless every single citizen of the state becomes aware of the problems and starts working hard for the growth of the state.
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Its not a problem with the government in this case. Just think about it.. Kerela is a place where most of us even go for a holiday. So that means that they are going to have more air traffic also i jst saw on airasia website that they are offering 29RM or 435 Rs. flight one way to kochi from kuala lampur. Now tell me who is going to get more passengers. Its not always the government at fault its just that people like to go to tourist destinations. Anybody here want to tell me which tourist destinations are there in a’bad that a young guy would like? I know we have vav’s and all the old temples and that. other than that?
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