Kochi airport will resume operations at 2 pm on August 29, instead of August 26 as had been announced earlier, the airport authorities said on Wednesday. Operations were suspended earlier last week.
The decision to postpone the reopening by three days follows a meeting with the stakeholders to review the damage control activities at the airport.
Logistical problems
“It was informed that 90 per cent of the staffers got affected by the floods and are out of town. As Central Kerala is yet to recover from the post-flood trauma, it is a daunting task to arrange local commutation logistics of catering items, which cause a cascading effect on the passengers,” the airport said in a statement.
Airlines, ground handling agencies were among the stakeholders present at the meeting where it was decided to push the reopening of the airport to August 29.
After the closure of the airport, the government asked some foreign airlines, including Air Arabia, Emirates, Etihad, flydubai, among others to reschedule operations from Thiruvananthapuram while some others like Gulf Air, Kuwait Airways, Malindo, Thai AirAsia among others suspended their flights to and from Cochin.
Loss to airport
The airport is estimated to have suffered a loss of over ₹220 crore, an official of the airport told PTI on Tuesday.
The report quoted the official as saying that the airport management has launched rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure including 2.5 km long airport walls that collapsed after Periyar river overflowed.
The runway, taxi bay, duty-free shops and other areas of international and domestic terminals were also submerged, causing damage to electrical equipment including runway lights, the official noted.