Tiruchi airport records increase in overseas, domestic passenger tra c
Tiruchi airport is the second busiest in Tamil Nadu after Chennai in terms of international ights as it has more ights to overseas destinations than domestic; tourist operators say ights can be introduced to more overseas destinations
Amid an upswing in the passenger trafc in the nancial year 2023-2024 at the Tiruchi International Airport, tourism and travel circles feel that introduction of ights to new overseas destinations would spur growth.
The increase was recorded both in international and domestic passenger categories. Tiruchi is the second busiest airport in Tamil Nadu after Chennai in respect of overseas travellers. International ights outnumber domestic ights in Tiruchi airport.
The number of international passengers recorded at Tiruchi airport was 13.05 lakh during the 2023-2024 scal reporting
Tourist operators feel that the AAI needs to market Tiruchi airport, which has good facilities, among the airlines.
an increase of 15.1 % over the previous nancial year (2022-2023) gure of 11.34 lakh.
In respect of domestic movements, it was 4.59 lakh in the 2023-2024 scal as compared to 3.80 lakh in the 2022-2023 recording an increase of 20.7%. The overall increase in passenger movement (international
and domestic put together) was 16.5% at Tiruchi airport in 20232024 scal, Tiruchi Airport Director P. Subramani said.
Seven international airlines, including Air India Express, Air Asia, and Sri Lankan Airlines were operating to 10 overseas destinations from Tiruchi airport until March 2024. However, in March-end VietJet airline, which had launched direct ight services between Tiruchi and Vietnam in early November 2023, suspended its operations all of a sudden citing “operational reasons”.
At present, Tiruchi airport has direct overseas connectivity to Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Doha, Muscat, and Kuwait. “Tiruchi airport has seen enormous growth over the years with more international ights than domestic services. The airport has expanded with 10 aero bridges and modern facilities. Having such infrastructure, this has to be fully utilised not only to generate revenue to the airport but also to cater to the travellers in the region,” said S.A. Mubashir, vicepresident, Trichy Tourism Federation.
Untapped potential
Other than the present operations to some destinations in the West Asia sector, there is immense trac potential to other destinations such as Riyadh and Damam as well, said Mr. Mubashir while suggesting that marketing the airport with new facilities among airlines was also essential.
Beyond West Asia and South East Asia regions, there is enormous trac in Africa, Europe, the U.S., and Canada sectors. If Tiruchi is designated as a point of call under the BASA (Bilateral Air Services Agreements), more ights could be operated to overseas destinations, said Mr. Mubashir.