VASCO
Dabolim Airport Director Dhanamjaya Rao has said the airport has had a great charter season and a steady rise in the footfall of passengers this season.
Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Rao said Dabolim Airport had handled 348 charter flights this season and added that the passenger footfall at the Goa airport had also increased substantially.
"We have had a great charter season and the Dabolim Airport had handled 348 international charter flights with around 1.40 lakh charter passengers this season. We had charter flights like Scat Airlines from Kazakhstan, Aeroflot from Russia, Aero-Nomad from Kyrgyzstan, Azur Airways from Russia and TUI from the UK, bringing in international tourist passengers in Goa from these charter flights," said Rao.
The airport director said in comparison, Dabolim Airport had handled only around 39 charter flights with around 15,000 charter passengers last season.
“The reason for this could be that the international markets were just opening and people may not have had the confidence or may have apprehensions to travel to different destinations amidst the Covid pandemic. This year, we had a good amount of charter flights and charter passengers," said Rao.
"Regarding the footfall of passengers at Dabolim Airport, this financial season we have handled around 8.35 million passengers compared to 5.4 million passengers last year. The 8.35 million passengers handled this financial year almost takes us to the pre-Covid highest footfall.”
“It is very important that we have reached the pre-Covid level as of now which is very significant and we expect that there will be more traffic this year and more charter flights as well since there are no restrictions on travel," said Rao.
