Despite economic uncertainties and soaring airfares, people seem to be flying to reconnect, explore and do business and work at various destinations.
The passenger footfall in the first six months of this financial year in the four international airports in Kerala indicate that air passenger traffic is likely to surpass the pre-pandemic level this fiscal. In the first six months of this fiscal, the domestic and international passengers from the State totalled 94.42 lakh, which comes to 57.7% of the total passenger traffic in the previous fiscal, according to statistics available with the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Not only Kerala, but the neighbouring States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu too witnessed a recovery in air traffic, with the first half of the fiscal witnessing a passenger footfall of 57.2% and 56.8% respectively, compared to the total passenger footfall the previous fiscal. During the pre-pandemic period, Kerala had handled a total of around 1.8 crore passengers a year with Cochin International Airport handling a record 1.02 crore passengers in 2017-18, the highest by an airport in the State.
