The airport here created a record of sorts on Wednesday, the day of Christmas, by handling 23 arrivals and 24 departures – the highest ever flight movement in a single day since its inception way back in 1957.
Sources said that the airport usually handles only 14 arrivals and an equal number of departures every day including domestic flights to Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad and international flights to Colombo and Dubai.
Unusually on Wednesday, it handled nine additional arrivals and 10 additional departures of private airplanes in view of VIP movement for a Christmas party organised by a private business conglomerate in Kodaikanal.
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Airport Director K. Sangaiah Pandian confirmed the news of the airport having handled record number of flight movement and said that the employees were buoyant over achieving the feat on the day of Christmas.
Explaining the reason behind the number of departures being more than arrivals, Terminal Manager K. Rajaram said that one of the flights that took off from here on Wednesday had arrived on Tuesday itself.
He further said that Sri Lankan carrier Mihin Lanka operated Airbus 321 (with a capacity of 200 passengers) as against the regular use of Airbus 320 (with a capacity of 180 passengers) from Colombo to the Madurai airport on Wednesday.
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Test operation
“The test operation was done today and I think they will continue to operate Airbus 321 regularly henceforth,” he also said.