Gannavaram International Airport in Vijayawada recorded a 30.24% surge in passenger footfall in the financial year 2024-25 with 13,83,855 passengers travelling between March 2024 and April 2025. Of the total, 13,54,925 travelled to domestic destinations, while 28,930 took international flights.
The rise in footfalls has been attributed to the airport operating direct flights to Mumbai and additional flights to Delhi. An average of 3,850 passengers travel from the Vijayawada airport daily.
Gannavaram Airport has reported a passenger footfall of more than 10 lakh for the fourth time. The airport operates 50 flights daily (25 arrivals and 25 departures). There are direct flights to Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Bengaluru, Tirupati, Kadapa, Mumbai and Delhi. International flights to Sharjah operate twice a week.
Officials are mulling over adding domestic flights to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Kochi in Kerala, and international flights to Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Kuwait in the future.
It is expected that better facilities will be available for the passengers once the integrated terminal is available.
The Gannvaram International Airport was built by the British for the needs of World War II. It was recognized as an international airport in 2017. The airport has since seen exponential growth with a brief disruption during the Covid-19 outbreak. In 2017-18, passenger traffic was 7,46,392. It increased to 11,92,000 in 2018-19. At 11,30,583, passenger footfall recorded a decline due to the Coronavirus outbreak. For two years between 2020 and 2022, the aviation sector saw a slump due to the pandemic. Passenger traffic saw a significant surge from the financial year 2022-23 as normalcy returned.
