Hyderabad, Dec 1 (IANS) The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here has recorded a fall of three percent in passenger traffic in the first six months of the current fiscal.

GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), which operates the airport, attributed the fall in number of passengers to the pan-India and the global economic slowdown phenomenon.

GHIAL CEO Vikram Jaisinghani said while the domestic passenger traffic came down slightly compared to the same period last year, the international traffic has gone up.

"For the first six months it was minus three percent both domestic and international put together," he told reporters at a news conference by Cathay Pacific to announce the launch of Hyderabad-Hong Kong flight.

He hoped that the things would improve in the second half of the financial year.

The world-class airport built in public private partnership mode, had registered 14 percent growth during 2011-12. The airport, which completed four years of operations in March this year, handled 8.6 million passengers including 1.9 million international passengers during the last fiscal.

Replying to a query, Jaisinghani said several airlines had shown interest in operating to additional sectors but admitted that bilaterals is an issue.

He said during the last five months, the Hyderabad airport recorded significant additions to the international routes like Dubai and Singapore. Silk Air and Tiger Airways are operating 14 flights from Hyderabad to Singapore against nine just three months ago.

GHIAL is a joint venture company promoted by GMR Infrastructure Ltd., (63 percent); Malaysian Airports Holding Berhad (11 percent), Airports Authority of India (13 percent) and Andhra Pradesh government(13 percent).

The airport is designed to handle 12 million passengers per annum.

Indo-Asian News Service

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