Air cargo seeing phenomenal growth amid Red Sea crisis

Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), which operates Bengaluru airport, expects 13-15 per cent growth in passenger footfall in 2024-25, its Chief Operating Officer (COO) SATYAKI RAGHUNATH tells Deepak Patel in an interview in New Delhi. Besides strong cargo performance, he speaks about the rising adoption of Digi Yatra by domestic travellers and the airport awaiting regulatory guidance to deploy full-body scanners. Edited excerpts:

- SATYAKI RAGHUNATH Chief Operating Officer, BIAL

You previously said the airport is expecting 10-15 per cent growth in passenger numbers in 2024-25. Are you in line with that?

Yes, the first half has been very good. Last year, we had the collapse of Go First airline. This year, it's been much more stable, even though there has not been much capacity growth in the market in terms of seats available and aircraft fleet. The fact that there's been no disruption has been a huge plus. IndiGo has also started getting aircraft back in its fleet. Air India and Tata Group are getting new aircraft. In the first half of 2023-24 (FY24), we handled more than 20 million passengers for the first time in our history. Therefore, when we take seasonality into account, we expect to handle somewhere between 41 and 42 million passengers during this financial year, which is quite a substantial growth from the 37.5 million that we handled in the previous year.

In 2024-25 (FY25), we are expecting between 13-15 per cent year-on-year growth. It depends on what happens in the second half of the year. The international growth has been good but slightly slower. However, I expect the winter growth to be a lot stronger (on the international side), simply because many foreign carriers are upgrading their frequencies and services.

What kind of cargo growth are you observing?