Comparative analysis of Bengaluru and Chennai Airport's passenger traffics

If we look at the top 10 busiest airports in India while Delhi and Mumbai are settled for the first and second position respectively for a quite a long time, competition can be seen between Bengaluru and Chennai for the third position. Until 2014 Chennai used to be at number 3 when Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru replaced it and became the third busiest Indian airport and the busiest airport in the South India. However a huge gap remains between Mumbai (second) and Bengaluru (third) airport's passenger volumes. Now if we look at the CY2015 ranking of top 10 airports (see above chart) and their passenger growth rates while all airports had recorded double digit growth rate, Chennai was the only one to grow at below 10% rate.

2015: Domestic vs international capacity of Indian carriers

Indian carriers had carried total 99.48 million passengers in 2015 while 81.09 million passengers flew on domestic routes, the rest 18.39 million were international passengers. Currently almost all the Indian carriers, with exception of Air India Express, are heavily focused on the high growth domestic market which grew at record 20% rate in 2015. It is evident from the above chart that the incumbent Indian carriers are more interested in operating in India rather on international routes. Just have a look at the case of IndiGo, the market leader in terms of annual passengers carried, its international capacity is disproportionately low compared its overall passengers in 2015.

Top 10 international routes from Delhi in 2015

Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi is the busiest airports in India in terms of passenger traffic. In 2015, it had handled total 45.98 million passengers and out of which 13.88 million passengers used international flights to and from Delhi. As per the DGCA data for international city-pair passengers released in mid February, the following is the list of top 10 busiest international route from Delhi Airport with annual passengers data on respective routes. Interestingly, 5 out of top 10 routes are eastward from Delhi while the other 5 is in westward direction. Three Gulf/West Asian airports, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha are featured in the top 10 list while only two long-haul European destinations London and Frankfurt are in the list. At 816 km from Delhi, Kathmandu is the nearest destination among the top 10 while Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are the three Southeast Asian destinations in the top 10 list. Hong Kong is the only East Asian destination to be featured in the list.

Delhi Airport: Share of International passenger traffic must be improved (PART-1)

Indira Gandhi International Airport (IATA code: DEL) in Delhi is the busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic not just in India but in entire South Asia. In 2015 Delhi Airport had handled 45.98 million passengers, registering a whopping 15.66% growth over passenger figure of 2014. And as predicted in this blog earlier, it is likely to cross 47 million annual passengers traffic by the end of current fiscal year (Apr'15-Mar'16). And at the current growth rate, Delhi Airport to achieve 54-55 million annual passenger traffic in FY2017. In 2014, Delhi Airport had been ranked the 31st busiest airport in the world. And given the positive outlook of Indian aviation sector, which recorded above 20% YoY growth in 2015, it is poised to feature among the top 20 busiest airports globally in the coming years.