Latest figures released by the Airports Council International (ACI), the Geneva-based association of world airports, report a fall of 6.7 per cent and 5.9 per cent in worldwide international and domestic passenger traffic from January to December 2008.

By contrast, in Mumbai airport, international passenger movement has actually registered a rise of 3.6 per cent between April 2008 and January 2009. In terms of domestic passenger traffic, however, Mumbai airport has followed the global trend: it has seen a decline of 8.5 per cent between April and January.

The rise in international traffic has come in spite of the Mumbai airport seeing two major airlines and a new one withdraw from the summer schedule.

Richard Branson-promoted Virgin Atlantic will withdraw its Mumbai-London flight from May 4, while Finnish airline Finnair will withdraw flights to Mumbai temporarily between May and mid-October.

“Though it won’t make a lot of difference to the overall airport traffic figures, symbolically it has a lot of significance,” admitted an airport official.

Another carrier, little-known Dubai-based Sama Airlines, has withdrawn its flights from Mumbai since March 1, according to an airport official. The reasons cited by all airlines circle around a sharp fall in load coupled with the ongoing slowdown.

“We have decided to temporarily suspend operations to Mumbai with effect from May 4. We are suspending this service until rational conditions re-emerge,” said Neha Lidder Ganju, senior marketing manager (India), Virgin Atlantic Airways.

However according to a Mumbai airport source, the real reason lay in competition cutting into the airlines’ pie. “There are four flights taking off for London within a span of one hour. So the competition out there is immense,” he said.

Though there has been an overall increase in international passenger movements, for the month of January alone the figures are down by 2.75 per cent compared to those for last January. As for domestic passenger traffic this January, the drop is 13.5% compared to that in last January.

“Though some airlines have withdrawn, there are other sectors that are actually doing very well,” said an airport official. “In fact Emirates is thinking of adding another flight from Mumbai to Dubai,” he said.