It has been two months since the Kannur international airport took wings, starting services to some Gulf and domestic destinations and the initial trends, according to Kannur International Airport Ltd. (KIAL), are encouraging.
The airport project originally envisaged that 80% of passengers using the airport will be international passengers. But the figures show that domestic passengers in the airport inaugurated on December 9 outnumbered the international passengers, reflecting the rapid growth of Indian domestic aviation.“Domestic aviation in the country has been growing at the rate of around 20% a year and the Kannur airport is seeing its reflection,” said V. Thulasidas, managing director of KIAL.
First month ratio
In the first month, the ratio of domestic and international passengers was roughly 50:50, he said adding that as the airport was completing its second month, it was more like 60:40.
At present, Air India Express is operating flights to four stations in the Gulf, namely Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyad. Soon IndiGo will start Kuwait and Doha services, KIAL officials said.
GoAir also has plans to start services to three Gulf destinations, namely Muscat, Abu Dhabi, and Dammam. Already there are domestic services from Kannur to Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, and Hubli.
IndiGo will soon start operating services to Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. KIAL has also asked GoAir to start services to Thiruvananthapuram.
Domestic movement
“The latest trend in the country is that domestic movement is being converted to air travel,” says C.S. Vinod, State president of the Association of Tourism Trade Organisations India. The Kannur airport is also going to benefit from this trend, he observed. The number of domestic passengers is set to increase further as the airline companies have assured KIAL that they will provide connectivity to Ahmedabad and Kolkata, either directly or via other stations.
According to tour operators, the airfare from Kannur to the existing domestic destinations is reasonable. There have been complaints about Air India Express fares. But the fares have come down as GoAir has announced that it will be starting flights.
