Northeast achieves highest air travel growth under UDAN

The Northeast has emerged as a new hub of demand for air travel over the last five years with an analysis of aircraft movement showing growth in the region far outstripping other parts of India.

The region saw the highest growth rate in aircraft movement in August 2022 compared with the same month in 2017. Aircraft movement is counted as either a landing or a takeoff.

Aircraft movement in the Northeast from August 2017 to August 2022 rose by 36 per cent to 7,973 flights—higher than the growth rates in the West, East, South and North zones. In comparison, growth was 5 per cent in the airports of the North and South regions, 14 per cent in the East and 0.5 per cent in the West.

The high growth in North-east air travel, much of it fueled by migrant labour, is from a low base. The year 2017 is taken as the base year for this analysis as it was when the government launched its UDAN regional connectivity scheme to put smaller towns and cities on the domestic aviation map. The government provides financial support to airlines that operate UDAN (Ude Desh Ke Aam Nagrik) routes.

Disaggregated by states, the demand is fuelled by Assam, which has six operational airports—the highest in the region—followed by Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram. Arunachal Pradesh, a large border state with poor airport infrastructure, could further fuel growth when the Hollongi airport, which will serve the capital Itanagar, becomes operational soon.

Abhijeet Das Gupta, Head of Network Planning at IndiGo said that for Indigo, India’s largest airline by market share, the northeast is of strategic importance. He added that IndiGo remains one of the few carriers who have achieved successful expansion in the Northeast over and above merely adding service because of route dispersal guidelines mandates. They continue to evaluate Northeast international services but were unable to commit to a timeframe right now.

In terms of flight movements, Guwahati is the busiest airport in the region with 3,498 aircraft movements, followed by Agartala at 1,052.

Connectivity to Shillong (Meghalaya), Dimapur (Nagaland), Dibrugarh and Lilabari (both Assam) has seen a higher rate of growth than other airports in the region.

“You know there are these organic gingers which are available in Manipur and they are a craze in Europe. These perishable items fly to Kolkata and directly from there to Europe.

An airport executive said that there is a massive potential when it comes to cargo as well freight handled by Imphal airport registered a 61 per cent increase in five years to 650 tonnes in August 2022.

ALSO READ : ICICI inaugurates Digital Banking Unit in Kohima.