Mangaluru Airport Breaks Passenger Records in FY 2024-25, Posts Post-Covid High
Mangaluru International Airport has posted its best-ever performance in terms of passenger traffic, flying past pre-COVID-19 benchmarks to close the financial year 2024-25 with a record 2.32 million passengers.
Mangaluru: Mangaluru International Airport has posted its best-ever performance in terms of passenger traffic, flying past pre-COVID-19 benchmarks to close the financial year 2024-25 with a record 2.32 million passengers. This marks not only a 15.34% growth over the previous fiscal but also a 24.1% leap over numbers recorded in 2019-20 — the last full year before the pandemic.
Domestic travel accounted for the bulk of the growth, with 1.61 million passengers in FY 2024-25 compared to 1.40 million the previous year — a 14.55% increase. International traffic too showed strong recovery and expansion, jumping 17.15% to 7.15 lakh passengers, up from 6.10 lakh the year before.
The airport also clocked a new record in air traffic movements (ATMs), handling 16,816 flights over the year. That’s 11.26% higher than the 15,113 movements in FY 2023-24. While international flight movements rose by 22.14% to 4,286, domestic ATMs increased by 8.94% to 12,244.
Cargo throughput saw similar momentum. On the domestic front, cargo volumes touched 3,864.1 metric tonnes (MT), up from 3,706.02 MT. International cargo operations, launched in July 2024, moved 1,347.07 MT by March-end — nearly all of it outbound shipments.
April 2025 proved a standout month as the airport welcomed 217,893 passengers — the highest since it was taken over under concession operations on 31 October 2020. Of these, 143,117 were domestic fliers and 74,776 international travellers. That month also witnessed the single busiest day in the airport’s history, with 8,103 passengers on 12 April.
To put the growth in perspective, the airport has handled 23.61% more domestic passengers and 25.21% more international travellers in FY 2024-25 compared to FY 2019-20, clearly establishing itself as a key aviation hub in coastal Karnataka.
