India’s 50 busiest airports to breach capacity this year

Half of them already handling too much traffic

At least 25 of the 50 busiest airports in India are already operating beyond their capacity, while almost all the others will reach optimal capacity in 2018-19 with the aviation industry growing at an unanticipated 18-20% every year, according to government documents accessed by Hindustan Times through the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

This holds true for both governmentand privately run airports, the documents show. Key airports such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune are already saturated, while Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa and Lucknow are among important aviation hubs that will reach full capacity by the end of the year. Experts say the figures only show overall capacity, but in peak hours, all these airports operate beyond capacity — leading to long queues at check-in counters, security risks because of compromised frisking, and clogging of gates leading to flight delays.

According to the civil aviation ministry, India has witnessed a phenomenal growth — the highest in the world — in the sector in the last four years and is already the world’s third-largest domes- tic aviation market. Smaller airports such as Leh, Surat, Tirupati, Jodhpur and Silchar are also operating beyond capacity.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on May 2 approved investments in expansion and upgradation of integrated terminals in Chennai, Guwahati and Lucknow by the Airports Authority of India at a cost of ₹2,467 crores, ₹1,232 crores and ₹1,383 crores, respectively.

Minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha, while announcing the expansion work, had said that ₹1 lakh crore would be invested to increase the capacity of Indian airports.