Cochin International airport Ltd (CIAL) establishes itself as the third airport in the country in terms of international traffic for three consecutive months from July 2021. CIAL anticipates a fairly high growth in international traffic for the month of October as more foreign carriers schedules frequent services from Kochi; the latest one being the Sri Lankan Airlines which started daily operation to Colombo from Sunday. With this, CIAL is handling 58 international arrival/departure operations a day for the month of October.
Sri Lankan Airlines resumed their daily service to Colombo on October 3. Sri Lankan flight UL 165 arrives at COK at 09:45 am and departs as UL 166 to Colombo at 10:45 am on all days except Sunday. On Sunday, the arr/dep is scheduled at 08:45am/09:45am. CIAL
Managing Director S Suhas IAS has informed that the airport witnessed a significant growth in traffic during September and schedules more international flights for October. “We are optimistic as the world has started to see a revival in all sectors. Global aviation is also responding to it. We hope that, our international connectivity will rise to 70 percent of the pre-pandemic period in next month whereas the domestic aircraft movement to near normalcy in winter schedule which is expected to commence in next month. As per the instruction of Chairman and Board of Directors, CIAL has rolled out several initiatives to increase connectivity ’’- said Suhas.
The airport handled 85,395 international passengers in July, 1,57,289 in August and 1,94,900 in September. The cumulative passenger volume, comprising of International and domestic, for the month of September was 3,70,044.
CIAL has initiated aggressive campaign to reach out to foreign carriers during the last three months period. Facilities were established at the terminal to boost the confidence of both the passengers and airlines. The airport now handles an average of 106 aircraft movements a day comprising of both international and domestic operations; whereas daily average passenger footfalls stands around 14,500. The airport now facilitates flights to all the Middle East destinations, London, Male and Colombo.
