The footfalls at the Goa Airport have reached almost 70% of pre-Covid levels after the lockdown norms had been relaxed in the state and this considered to be a good sign for the Tourism industry in Goa.
According to the reports, a bounce-back in the domestic travel industry has resulted in an increase in footfalls at the Goa Airport which has touched nearly 70 percent of the pre-Covid level.
The Goa Airpot that witnessed around 8 million passengers in the last financial year is expected to hit the 11.2 million mark by Mid 2022, stated the report.
According to the director of Goa Airport Mr. Gagan Malik, the airport handles 50 flights on the weekends and 45 flights on a weekday which is usually lean.
“Right now international travel is not happening but in three months things may change. So keeping that in view vis-a-vis growth in aviation and footfalls in Goa, we will be able to handle 11.2 million passengers by mid-2022,” said Malik.
It is due to the increase in air traffic the expansion plan of the existing building terminal has taken up by the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to keep pace with the rapid increase of passengers.
AAI has also initiated talks with the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Goa Electricity department for a dedicated power line and water pipeline for the airport complex.
“The basic purpose of the extension is that domestic passenger growth is fast, it is rapid and so we want to shift the domestic side to the international side and the international side to the domestic side. The reason is that we want to accommodate more passengers comfortably,” said Malik.
Expansion of the terminal building will reduce the distance for the international passengers while boarding the aircraft and will also improve the on-time performance of airlines as the turnaround time will be faster.
“The passenger inflow will keep increasing. If we have to keep pace with this, we need to expand our infrastructure, increase check-in counters, increase the security hold area,” said Malik. He said that construction activity will start as soon as the required approvals come for the Rs131 crore expansion.
“We are in all readiness as far as starting the project is concerned but we have to go through this process. We expect that by end of January we will get the approval. We will try to finish this project by June 2022 even though the time for the project is 21 months,” said Malik.
This spike in the air traffic at Goa Airport is surely a good omen for Goa’s tourism industry which has almost sunk due to the Covid pandemic.
