Staff Reporter
Panaji
Manohar International Airport (MIA) at Mopa clocked record flight operations in 2024, with a jump of 26.6 per cent in passenger footfall and increase of 22.7 per cent in aircraft traffic movement over the previous year.
MIA sources on Friday said the airport handled a whopping 14,000 passengers on December 30, followed by another 15,000 passenger arrivals on December 31, as tourists from all over the country arrived in the state to celebrate New Year eve.
In 2024, total passenger traffic of the airport was 47.16 lakh, of which 44.69 lakh passengers were domestic fliers and 2.47 lakh international fliers.
In 2023, the airport witnessed 37.26 lakh passenger footfall, of which 36.67 lakh were domestic passengers while the others were international fliers.
With several foreign airlines locating their base to Mopa, the airport saw 31,916 flights landing and taking-off in 2024, which included 30,295 domestic flights and 1,621 international flights. In 2023, the number was 26,013 flights, of which 25,593 were domestic and 420 international operations.
Commissioned on January 5, 2023, MIA is presently working towards phase II of its expansion plan that will increase the capacity from 4.4 million passengers to 7.7 million fliers.
All domestic airlines such as Indigo, Go Air, Akasa Airways, Alliance Airways, FLY91, presently operate from the airport.
The international airlines using the airport are foreign charter flights of TUI and Enter Air, as well as scheduled international flights of Aeroflot, Uzbekistan Airways, Air Arabia, Qatar Airways, Oman Air and Air India.
The state’s second international airport is a partnership between the state government and GMR Infrastructure under a concessionaire agreement.
