Adding another feather to its cap, the Prayagraj airport located at Bamrauli has become the third one in the state to have handled more than 25,000 flights (till April 2023) in just 52 months, say officials. Besides, 19.27 lakh passengers have also travelled through in the past 52 months and in another couple of months this number will cross the 20-lakh figure, they add.
At present, only Lucknow and Varanasi airports are ahead of Prayagraj in this regard. However, the feat for Sangam city is more important as the other two airports are international ones while only domestic flights operate from Prayagraj, officials say.
The Prayagraj airport, which connects Sangam city to different parts of the country, was formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 16, 2018 but the new terminal of Prayagraj airport was opened for the movement of flights and passengers on January 1, 2019, just before the start of the Kumbh Mela-2019.
Since then, many achievements have been registered by Prayagraj airport as it ranks first in the category of domestic airports in terms of customer satisfaction in the state.
The April 2023 data released by the airport administration showed that the movement of aircraft at Prayagraj airport has crossed 25,000. Till March 31, 2023, 24, 581 aircraft had operated from here. This number increased to 25,247 till April 30, 2023.
There is a direct air service for many cities from this airport, including Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Delhi and Dehradun. All these are operated by Indigo while Alliance Air operate flights for Delhi, Dehradun and Bilaspur.
If year wise increase in number of flights being operated from Prayagraj is seen, in 2019, a total of 4,470 flights operated from this airport which came down to 3,968 in 2020.
However, it took a huge leap and in 2021, when 6,385 flights operated from here and the same increased to 7,836 in 2022. This year till April 30, 2,588 flights operated from Prayagraj airport which is all set to further expand its facilities and flight as well as passenger handling capacities before Mahakumbh-2025.
“The number of people traveling by air is increasing year by year. Due to this, the movement of flights has also increased. This will further grow as we plan to have more direct flights to some more cities before Mahakumbh-2025”, said director (regional) of Airports Authority of India (AAI), Prayagraj, RR Pandey.
BJP MP and chairman Prayagraj Airport Advisory Committee, Keshari Devi Patel said, “The common man is also travelling by air now. In the last five years, Prayagraj has got direct air connectivity with many cities of the country. The movement of more than 25,000 aircraft is a big achievement and we hope to grow further.”