Top 10 Busiest Airports in India in H1-2016

India, the fastest growing air-travel market in the world, is experiencing the biggest boom in passenger numbers in recent years. Indian airlines carried more than 47.5 million passengers in domestic sector alone in the first six months of 2016 with 22.5% year-on-year (YoY) growth. And the full year domestic passenger volume in 2016 is expected to cross 100 million mark for the first time. As a result, India's top airports are bustling with passenger traffic growing at double digit rate and outpacing even the most liberal growth forecast. Airports in key metropolis like Mumbai, the financial capital of India, is nearing saturation and facing huge congestion. Five out of top ten airports in the list grew at more than 20% rate in H1-2016 which is unparalleled currently in the world. Barring Mumbai all other airports post double digit passenger growth rate. Mumbai too grew at 9.7% YoY rate which by all standard considered as high growth given its large base. Delhi and Bengaluru airports are the star performers with 21% YoY growth with the already large passenger base. 

Delhi-Indira Gandhi International Airport, India's busiest airport just crossed 50 million passenger marks on twelve months basis (June 2015 - May 2016). Now, with 26.8 million passengers in H1-2016, Delhi Airport is expected to cross 55 million annual passengers in CY2016. And it is also likely to achieve five million monthly passenger milestones during the upcoming peak season in Q4-2016. Even with such large passenger base, Delhi is giving tough competition to comparatively smaller airports like Bengaluru in terms of growth rate. In fact Delhi is one of the fastest growing major airports (above 40 mppa) in the world.

In the ranking order, Kolkata-Hyderabad and Pune-Goa interchange their positions from 2015 ranking. While Hyderabad beats Kolkata by only 24,534 passengers to claim the fifth position in H1-2016 but Hyderabad's current ranking isn't stable given the narrow lead over Kolkata. And Kolkata airport may regain the fifth position in the 2016 full year ranking with the planned increase in flights in the later part of the year. Once again Goa occupies the ninth position pushing Pune back to tenth where it belongs prior to 2015. And this trend is unlikely to alter, in fact the lead is only going to increase given Goa's typically strong performance during peak tourist season in Q4-2016.