India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets globally and is currently the third largest in the world in terms of passenger footfall. More than 4 lakh passengers are travelling daily on domestic flights alone, with almost 6,000 flight movements (as per Ministry of Civil Aviation data, dated September 23, 2023). In comparison, only 3.50 lakh passengers were travelling on a daily basis around the same period last year. To handle these many passengers, India is rapidly developing airports at a colossal scale.
While new airports are being inaugurated every now and then, the existing airports are seeing an upsurge in the traffic. As seen in the data compiled from AAI, Delhi remains the busiest airport in India, in terms of overall passenger traffic movement, both domestic and international. Mumbai remains the second and Bengaluru is the third busiest airport.
Top 10 Busiest Airports (Domestic + International)
1. Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi: 59,38,988 passengers
2. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumbai: 43,29,749 passengers
3. Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru: 29,93,061 passengers
4. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad: 20,36,328 passengers
5. Chennai International Airport: 17,53,115 passengers
6. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata: 15,37,689 passengers
7. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad: 9,32,223 passengers
8. Cochin International Airport: 9,09,792 passengers
9. Pune International Airport: 8,31,239 passengers
10. Dabolim International Airport, Goa: 5,39,462 passengers
The passenger figure includes both domestic and international air passengers. If seen purely from domestic passengers point-of-view, the list largely remains the same, Kolkata's Netaji Subash Chandra Bose Airport replacing Chennai airport in the top 5 list.
In terms of international passengers, Chennai Airport replaces the Bengaluru Airport at the third spot, while latter is placed at the 5th spot. The Kochi Airport came at the 4th spot, which serves as an important hub for passengers from the Middle East.
Interestingly, Calicut, Trivandrum and Ahmedabad Airports, which are not in the top 10 list of overall traffic as well as domestic passenger traffic are among the top 10 busiest airports international passenger wise.
