With Tiger Airways augmenting its service in the Tiruchi – Singapore – Tiruchi sector, passenger and cargo movement to this South East Asian destination is poised to propel further.
The foreign airline launched an additional weekly service from Tiruchi to Singapore from the early hours on Tuesday in addition to its daily flight services being operated in the sector.
With this addition, the number of flight services to Singapore operated by this airline from Tiruchi would increase from 12 to 13 per week. The introduction of another service would mean augmentation of capacity both in respect of passenger and cargo movements to Singapore, say stakeholders. Among other foreign destinations, Singapore is a major market for exporters of the Tiruchi region.
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Nearly 70 per cent of the volume of exports from Tiruchi is to Singapore with the commodities primarily shipped being vegetables and flowers in the available belly space in the flights.
Good trend
Going by the trends, airport sources say the cargo uplift would increase by 2.5 tonnes per flight with the introduction of the additional service by the Tiger Airways.
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Most goods routed through the Kuala Lumpur-bound Air Asia flights by the exporters from here are directed to Singapore which is done through onward shipment from Malaysia, say the sources.
In addition to Tiger Airways, Air India Express is the other carrier operating daily flights in the Tiruchi – Singapore sector every day. The sources said there was heavy passenger patronage in the Air India Express flight to Singapore from Tiruchi.
The airport witnessed a spike in overseas travellers’ movement in 2014-15 fiscal crossing the 10 lakh mark. Overseas cargo movement also saw an upward trend from the airport during the last fiscal
.