Monthly passenger traffic volume at Mumbai airport topped three million in October, aided by a robust growth in domestic traffic as well as addition of new flights to Abu Dhabi and Paris in the past few months.
This is the second time the Mumbai airport is crossing the three-million mark.
In May this year, too, the airport had handled that many passengers.
Domestic traffic accounts for 68 per cent of total passenger traffic.
Mumbai is the second-busiest airport in India after Delhi. In 2013-14, the Mumbai airport handled 32 million passengers against Delhi’s 36.9 million.
According to Mumbai International Airport Limited spokesperson, the airport handled 3.04 million passengers in October and 3.15 million passengers in May.
In December 2013, 2.9 million passengers passed through the Mumbai airport.
Delhi, Bengaluru and Goa are the busiest domestic routes while Dubai, London and Singapore are the busiest international routes from Mumbai.
Paris, Abu Dhabi and Kathmandu showed the fastest traffic growth amongst the international routes in the April-September 2014 period.
Passenger volume grew 90 per cent.
Locally, Amritsar, Kozhikode and Patna/Ranchi showed the fastest growth during this period and traffic to Amritsar was up 90 per cent.
“Year 2014 has been an eventful year at Mumbai airport as it witnessed the inauguration of the iconic Terminal 2.
"Passenger numbers have seen record high during May and October this year.
"Growth has resulted in Airbus A380 operations, additional frequencies to the United Arab Emirates, Paris, Colombo, Kathmandu, Bangkok and new services by airlines like Malindo Air, Druk Air and flydubai,” MIAL spokesperson added.
Mumbai lost its No 1 rank to Delhi in 2009-10 owing to capacity constraints and delays in modernisation of the airport.
While the Delhi airport with its three runways handles 950 flights a day, the Mumbai airport handles around 760 flights.
The Mumbai airport has two intersecting runways that limit runway movements.
The main runway has a capacity of 45 movements and can handle up to 48 movements an hour. The secondary runway can handle 30-32 flights in an hour.
However, simultaneous operations are not carried out at Mumbai.
It will be difficult to increase aircraft movements beyond 50 an hour, said an official.
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