GMR Hyderabad International Airport has informed that the passenger “transfer traffic” – domestic to domestic and domestic-international, has increased from 9% in 2015 to 26% so far this year on Monday. “This is a reflection of how the airport’s geographical location has helped airlines to create a hub and spoke model effectively as all the domestic airlines fly from here,” said an official spokesperson.
Once the airport capacity is expanded from 12 million to 34 million passengers a year bringing the integrated domestic and international terminals under a single roof, it will help in reducing timelines to about 45 minutes for domestic to domestic transfers, 75 minutes for domestic to international and 90 minutes from international to domestic.
As of now, the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) connects to any part of the country within a flying time of two hours and internationally, airlines can connect to South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East within a flying time of four hours.
Since the domestic destinations can be reached within two hours of flying time, domestic traffic from India and transfer traffic from South Asia, Southeast Asia and Middle East regions can support the traffic requirement for long-haul flights to the USA, Europe and Australia, the spokersperson explained.
Although the overall International travel was subdued during the prolonged COVID-19 period, the airport has added flights to two new international destinations i.e., Chicago and Maldives besides adding a flight to London. All these flights have shown a high load factor with a high yield and have helped in making the airport, the fourth busiest in the country, up from the sixth busiest, said the press release.
