New Delhi, Feb 27 (UNI) New routes and fresh city pairs introduced by private airlines led to a phenomenal growth in civil aviation sector last year, according to the Economic Survey 2006-07.

During April to September '06, international and domestic passengers recorded a growth of 15.8 per cent and 44.6 per cent respectively, which led to an overall growth of 35.5 per cent.

In the same period, international and domestic cargo recorded growth of 13.8 per cent and 8.7 per cent which amounted to an overall growth of 12 per cent.

Private airlines introduced as many as 22 new routes to metro and non-metro cities, said the Economic Survey. GoAir and IndiGo were among the new airlines that started operations in 06.

Meanwhile, Air India Express started operations in sectors like Mangalore-Delhi, Amritsar-Dubai and Dubai-Chennai. It also took over AI's Singapore operations from Chennai from October 29.

While Indian kicked off operations on routes like Bangalore-Bhubaneshwar-Bangalore and Delhi-Khajurao-Varanasi and return, its subsidiary Alliance Air started flying on Chennai-Bhubneshwar-Chennai sector.

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