Poor international connectivity

All- domestic: One of the flight information display screens at Coimbatore International Airport which was recently announced as silent airport.

In terms of international connectivity, the city is connected to Singapore and Sharjah with direct flights. Both Air Arabia and Silk Air operates flights five days a week to Sharjah and Singapore respectively.

Though Coimbatore sees growth in passenger traffic, it needs at least two more international flights to break even on the revenue front, say official sources here.

An IT sector representative told

The Hindu that since operation of direct flight to Singapore the number of visitors to and from Australia to the city has increased ten-fold.

Sri Lankan airlines had asked for a slot for connectivity between Coimbatore and Colombo and the airport authorities had granted the same for this year’s summer schedule. However, there is no progress on that front so far, the official sources add.

While connectivity to Colombo is a welcome move, it might not see much traffic as Colombo is not an international hub, say industry sources here. Abu Dhabi is another destination that Coimbatore can be connected to. But, the number of international flights out of Abu Dhabi is not as high as Dubai, they say.

According to them, while Silk Air is able to operate flights out of Coimbatore and see good traffic, it should not be a problem for other airliners, even with the existing infrastructure at the international airport here.