The weekend saw the country record the highest-ever domestic passenger count in history, which now stands at 5.3 lakh passengers in a day. A significant portion of this was powered by the surge in traffic to Prayagraj, where the Mahakumbh is being held, a once-in-144-year phenomenon attracting record crowds.
The government, in anticipation, expanded the civil enclave, which saw a doubling of bays, the addition of capacity to handle non-scheduled movements, and the expansion of the terminal and other cityside infrastructure. Airlines added capacity, which clearly was insufficient to handle the crowds leading to fares hitting the roof. This was followed by the government prodding the airlines to control the fares as well as launch additional flights.
The airport is now seeing over 60 flights a day, which is more than many Tier 2 airports in the country. The expanded terminal, clearly, is stretched to the maximum to handle as many flights and passengers. The biggest challenge for any airline to operate at an airport on a temporary basis is the staff. The time period is too short to hire locally and train them and relatively longer for deputation from another place in the country.
As passengers find it difficult to book flights, with or without a pinch to the pocket and make their arrangements from the airport to the river for the holy dip, airlines have had other challenges. The sudden surge in flights meant that staff had to be deputed at Prayagraj to handle the rush. While deputation is very standard practice, what makes this challenging is that every place in Prayagraj was sold out or converted to host guests, and in such times, having to host so many employees at affordable costs became the biggest challenge for airlines. If arrangements for stay were taken care of, the next challenge was transport. Change in routes and all operators looking for Mahakumbh traffic meant that it was a difficult task to look for buses and other vehicles that would be available for regular pick-up and drop of the staff.
How are airlines overcoming the challenge?
SpiceJet is no stranger to this operation. In the last Kumbh Mela in 2013, the airline had added up to eight daily flights between Delhi and Prayagraj (then Allahabad). The air traffic in India was half of what it is today. The significance of Mahakumbh, a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, separates this from the previous ones. The airline is the largest among all at Prayagraj currently, with a significant portion of its capacity dedicated to flights to Prayagraj. It is operating 125 weekly departures from nine cities, with the first airline to introduce direct flights from Ahmedabad and Guwahati.
SpiceJet has deputed around 90 ground staff, who have been mobilised from various airports across the country to Prayagraj. The biggest challenge was accommodation and local transportation in the initial days, since most available accommodation was taken up for the Mahakumbh and so was the transport. The airline arranged special coaches to ensure smooth connectivity for the staff, which are working across shifts.
A spokesperson for IndiGo, India’s largest airline, said that the airline is incredibly proud of its employees who have gone above and beyond to make this possible. IndiGo has scheduled operations at Prayagraj and the biggest operations before Kumbh. However, today it handles more flights a day than what it did in a week, pre-Kumbh. IndiGo flights increased from 490 to over 1,200 with flights during the Mahakumbh period with flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Raipur, Bhubaneshwar, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Pune and Jaipur. As its ground staff on deputation descended to Prayagraj, the reality dawned upon which was handling operations across two terminals. The expansion of Prayagraj airport led to two different terminals being created and with limited capacity. There also is a challenge of more passengers needing assistance based on the age profile of passengers.
Air India launched operations to Prayagraj on January 25, 2025. The airline does not have scheduled operations to Prayagraj. The airline quickly went up from seven flights a week to 140 flights a week in a matter of weeks, including operating additional charter flights to Prayagraj.
Air India’s spokesperson informed that “Air India scaled up the deputed staff at Prayagraj from initially 14 personnel to now 36 from its Airport Operations, Engineering, and Security teams who were relocated on short notice from cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Mangalore, Chennai, Calicut, Indore, and Chandigarh. They navigated local accommodation challenges, utilising city hotels that mostly operated at capacity, banquet accommodations, and even tapping into local hosts through friends and families. Other internal departments at Air India, including its administration and travel desk, worked around the clock to support this requirement and by entering short-term agreements with local vendors for baggage delivery, refreshments for passengers when required, etc”.
“Air India’s ground handling agent also supported this rapid scale-up by deploying over 150 personnel, and collectively, the teams worked in close collaboration with the airport agencies, the Indian Air Force, and multiple other stakeholders. The airline’s teams on the ground also ensured that all required equipment were moved to Prayagraj in time from Varanasi and Lucknow, with the gradual scale-up supported by its ground handling agent pulling in more manpower from other stations. Air India’s teams rose to the occasion and prioritised customer needs and convenience before everything else,” the spokesperson added.
Star Air, the longest-serving private regional carrier in India, has also jumped on the bandwagon and launched flights from Bengaluru and Hyderabad to Prayagraj. The airline does not operate to Prayagraj and will be relying on deputed staff to run the operations. Akasa Air also launched flights to Prayagraj, a place where they do not offer scheduled operations.
Tail Note
Airlines in India have risen to the needs of the market multiple times. Be it the evacuation of Indian nationals or continuing to serve the Kashmir Valley when Srinagar airport had to be closed for runway resurfacing and to mount flights on religious occasions, the efforts are often overlooked in favour of rising airfares and last-minute fares. While most airports in the country offer some breather in terms of non-peak hours and not-so-full flights, the situation is exactly the opposite at Prayagraj with most, if not all, flights plying at 100 per cent load factors putting additional pressure on the limited staff which is staying away from families and their usual place of work to handle this holy gathering.
The pressure is not just on the staff but also on the security; the Indian Air Force, which operates the airport, and the Airports Authority of India personnel who are utilising the limited terminal and apron space to handle not just scheduled movements but also charters. It is also a classic example of having the ability to pull off a big event if there is a will.
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