Only a tenth of the total cargo handling capacity is being utilised at the Coimbatore International Airport, which witnessed a decline of 163 tonnes in international cargo movement in the last fiscal.
Official sources told The Hindu here on Wednesday that while the Cargo Complex here had the infrastructure to handle 100 tonnes, it was now handling just about 10 tonnes a day.
International cargo movement was 2,537 tonnes (including exports and imports) during 2013-14, while it was 2,700 tonnes in the preceding fiscal. Exports fell from 2,597 to 2,453 tonnes and imports, from 103 during 2012-13 to 84 tonnes in the last fiscal.
Some solace came from domestic cargo movement, which registered a marginal increase, going up to 6,129 tonnes, from 5,866 tonnes in 2012-13.
Senior officials in the Cargo Section said that Coimbatore had tremendous potential for increasing the cargo movement. Garments and engineering sectors alone could drive this growth. These products were now being trucked to Kochi or Chennai, which handled nearly five cargo crafts every day. Bringing in cargo flights to Coimbatore would boost local economy and decongest Chennai Airport.
Sources said that the airport had no cargo aeroplanes at present. These planes were required to transport engineering goods, which cannot be loaded onto passenger aircrafts. While commercial passenger aircrafts could transport one to two tonnes, cargo aircrafts have capacities ranging from 40 to 100 tonnes. The present runway length of 9,810 feet at Coimbatore International Airport was sufficient to handle small cargo aircrafts, the official said.
While plans were afoot to extend the runway to 12,500 feet to accommodate bigger aircrafts, delay in land acquisition had stalled the extension works, the construction of a new Rs. 800-crore integrated terminal and an additional hanger.
The Coimbatore Airport also has a Plant Quarantine Station, located at the Air Cargo Complex, which played a vital role in exporting as it issued the phytosanitary certificate, attesting that the exports consignment was free of pest, diseases and bacteria.
