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As the country plans to resume scheduled commercial international flights on March 27, Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) is all set to facilitate hassle free traffic in both the international and domestic sectors. As per the summer schedule, which will come into effect on March 27 and will be operational till October 29, CIAL will have 1,190 weekly air traffic movements as against 848 during the ongoing winter schedule.
CIAL’s summer schedule will see 20 airlines operating to destinations abroad among which 16 are international carriers operating 261 weekly departures. Indigo tops the list with 42 weekly departures to international destinations whereas Air India Express will have 38 departure operations weekly.
The other prominent carriers operating frequent weekly services are Air Asia Berhad -21, Ethihad -21, Emirates -14, Oman Air -14, Qatar Air -14, Saudi Arabian -14, Kuwait air -8, Thai Air -4, Sri Lankan -10, Gulf Air -7, and Fly Dubai -3. There will be 44 weekly departures to Dubai Alone whereas Abu Dhabi comes second with 42 operations from Kochi.
Air India Express will continue its three weekly operations to London and Thai Air Asia will resume its operations from Kochi in June, with four weekly direct flights to Bangkok. After a hiatus of two years, Air Asia Berhad is also having daily services to Kuala Lumpur from March.
Connecting cities
CIAL schedules 668 domestic operations for the summer season offering connectivity with 13 cities in the country which includes 63 weekly flights to Delhi, 55 to Mumbai, 39 to Hyderabad, 49 to Chennai, 79 to Bengaluru, and 7 to Kolkata. There will be daily flights to Pune, Trivandrum, Mysuru, Kannur, Hubli and Agati, Ahmedabad.
CIAL Managing Director, S Suhas, said the zealous effort taken by the airport to smoothen the traffic during the pandemic period would have instilled a sense of safety in international airlines and that has been reflected in the summer schedule,
CIAL, which had been handling 10 million passengers a year during the pre-pandemic era, implemented a slew of measures to increase the traffic during the period. CIAL handled a total of 43,06,661 passengers during the whole year of 2021. Of this, 18,69,690 were international passengers. CIAL’s passenger volume has almost increased by a million in 2021 when compared to that of 2020.
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