Patna: Bihar’s aviation sector has grown roughly by eight times in the past one decade, contributing to ₹252crore revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal, stated the latest edition of Bihar economic survey, which was released by the state finance department recently.
Officials of the state civil aviation department said that the sector is bound to grow more after the launch of commercial flight operations from Purnia and other few airports, proposed to be developed in the next few years.
The recent trends of business in terms of air passengers and freights from Patna airport also hint that the sector is gradually catching up with the pre-Covid era traffic. “There has been about 55% jump in air sector business in Bihar in 2021-22 as compared to the previous year. Total revenue from air traffic has gone up to ₹252 crore in last fiscal as compared to ₹163 crore in 2019-20 in Bihar,” the report stated.
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A senior officer of the state aviation department said that there has been an upwardly trend in passengers as well as freight traffic, it might take another year to cross the pre-Covid era. “Till December last year, Patna airport has seen movements of 21,427 aircraft and 27.67 lakh passengers vis-a-vis movements of 35145 flights and 45.24 lakh passengers in 2019-20,” he said, adding that shipment of freight is likely to resume to the pre-Covid era to around 12,000 tonne by the end of this fiscal.
A robust civil aviation set-up is a key to seamless flow of investment, trade and tourism, with significant multiplier effects. Among others, this industry depends on two major factors, like business activities in that region and quality of service provided. The Airport Council International (ACI) World helps around 400 airports worldwide to manage and deliver the best services for their customers. ACI also publishes air service quality (ASQ) index each year for all airports. The Patna airport has been continuously improving its ASQ Index and its ranking has improved to 71 in 2022 from 233 in 2020.
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Officials said that the business from Patna airport, which is one of the fasted growing airports under the Airports Authority of India (AAI), is likely to go up considerably once the new terminal building and freight section are complete early next year. “The airport at Patna has served nearly 2 crore passengers during the last five years (2017-18 to 2021-22) and carried more than 45 thousand tones of freight during the same period. The aircraft movements as well as passengers and freight business are gradually recovering from the Covid year,” said the report.
Year wise revenue earnings by the state aviation sector in crores
