Kochi: CIAL has announced the summer flight service schedule from Nedumbassery International Airport. There are a total of 1330 services in the current winter schedule. The new summer schedule is 1628 weekly services.
Valid from March 31 to October 26, 2024. Twenty-six airlines in the international sector and eight in the domestic sector operate in Cial. Abu Dhabi has the highest number of services in the international sector, with 66 weekly services.
There are 46 services to Doha and 45 services to Dubai from Kochi. Thai Airways launches three-weekly premium services to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport. Thai Lion Air will also start daily services to Bangkok Don Mueang Airport. This is in addition to the existing Thai AirAsia daily services. Akasha Air begins operations in the international sector with daily flights to Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Jeddah.
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Etihad will operate 7 additional weekly flights to Abu Dhabi and AirAsia Berhad will operate 5 weekly services to Kuala Lumpur. IndiGo has announced additional daily services to Doha and SpiceJet to Mali. In addition to the existing tri-weekly Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday services to London Gatwick, Air India will start an additional weekly service. Jazeera Airways and Saudia will launch 2 additional weekly flights to Kuwait and Jeddah respectively.
Cial’s efforts to expand services on busy routes and regional routes have received a positive response from both passengers and airlines. Considering the recent development of tourism in Lakshadweep, more services are being prepared from Kochi to Agathi. As per current winter schedule, Alliance Air has 10 services to Agathi. It will go up to 16 in summer time schedule. This is with the start of IndiGo daily flights to Agathi.
Air India Express will start 2 additional daily flight operations to Hyderabad. Akasha Air and Vistara will operate additional daily services to Bangalore. Currently there are 87 weekly services to Bangalore. IndiGo, Air India Express and Akasha Air will start 14 additional services per week.
With this, the Kochi-Bangalore sector will have an average of 16 flights per day. In addition, IndiGo is starting daily services from Kochi to Kozhikode, a new domestic sector. It will leave Kozhikode at 8:30 AM and reach Kochi at 9:30 AM. The return flight will depart at 1:35 PM and reach Kozhikode at 2:35 PM. There will be 122 weekly domestic flights to Bangalore, 71 to Delhi, 68 to Mumbai, 61 to Hyderabad, 49 to Chennai, 16 to Agathi, 7 services each to Ahmedabad, Goa, Kannur, Kolkata, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram and 5 weekly services to Salem.
Cial is the fourth largest airport in the country in terms of international traffic. CIAL is the only airport in Kerala that handles 1 crore passengers in a calendar year. Because of that, CIAL is making efforts to advance and innovate with the developments of the Indian aviation sector, S. Suhas IAS said.
“CIAL’s objective is to expand passenger comfort by launching new routes and increasing the number of existing international and domestic flights. It has been agreed to start additional services to busy domestic routes and various Gulf cities. CIAL has been devising and implementing active efforts to enable development of the airport through non-aeronautical means. We hope that this will strengthen CIAL’s efforts to become an important hub in the aviation sector in South India,” Suhas said.
CIAL, the world’s first fully solar powered airport, has also initiated a green hydrogen production initiative in collaboration with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). CIAL also holds the distinction of being the first airport in the world to engage in this initiative.
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