City sees dip in international air traffic

City sees dip in international air traffic


CHENNAI: Summer holidays and reduced fares have failed to boost international air passenger traffic in April, which has dipped by 4% compared to the corresponding period last year. Airport officials have reasons to fear that the numbers might go down further in the coming months.

Domestic passenger traffic decreased by 15% while the number of departing passengers alone dipped by 18% in April 2009, compared to the period last year. Consequently, several of the private commercial establishments have notified that they would be closing down their shops in the international and domestic terminals. International passenger departures dipped by 8% while domestic passenger departures came down by 18% in April. "

Departing passengers bring business for shops inside the airport. As footfalls dropped, many of the licensees have intimated that they will be withdrawing from the airport," said an airport official. The shops that will be closing down include a handicraft store, jewellery and a recently-opened lounge. "May is going to be worse. Airlines were hoping that holidays will draw passengers, but that has not happened.

The H1N1 flu threat seems to have added to the woes," the official said. Airlines are also not starting new services or increasing frequencies of existing services. International passenger traffic has been showing a decline month-on-month since December 2008, but it registered an overall increase of 7% last year. However, international aircraft movement has increased by 8%.

In a bid to boost passenger traffic, international airlines like Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Lufthansa have been offering attractive fares. When domestic airfares skyrocketed last year, travellers chose to fly abroad. International passenger traffic went up in spite of a decline in the total number of passengers who flew in and out of Chennai airport from April 2008 to March 2009.

Industry experts say that a combination of factors including aggressive promotion by foreign tourism boards and cheaper international airfares helped boost international passenger traffic then. "A couple of airlines started services to new sectors, like Kingfisher Airlines to Colombo, while other increased their frequencies to high-yield routes when routes were rationalised following recession," an AAI official said.

Chennai airport saw a 7% increase in international passenger traffic from 34.1 lakh passengers in 2007-08 to 36.63 lakh in 2008-09 even as domestic passenger traffic declined 15% from 72.47 lakh in 2007-08 to 61.79 lakh last year, according to the statistics compiled by AAI. All that appears to have come to a halt.

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