MUSCAT, JULY 10
An international gateway for two Indian states is struggling to stay afloat after authorities refused to give permission to foreign carriers.
The Kannur International Airport or KIAL is beneficial for the people of Kerala state’s districts of Kannur, Wayanad and Kozhikode, and some parts of neighbouring Karnataka state including Mangalore but is in dire straits triggering concerns of the shareholders, employees and travellers.
However, Vasudevan Thulasidas, former managing director of the fourth international airport of Kerala, said there is no room for worries as no airport has ever been closed in the world. He said several airlines like Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, Saudi Airlines, Oman Air, Kuwait Airlines are interested in operating from here. Allowing them will be the easiest solution to save the airport.
"There's no room for worries on a long term basis as nowhere in the world has any airport failed. The present issue is a temporary one and I'm pretty sure that the Government of India will realise that this airport is an asset to the nation generating income to the exchequer and they will change their policy by allowing international carriers to use the airport," Thulasidas, who is now the Special Officer of Sabarimala International Airport Project.
"What caused the present predicament of the Kannur Airport is that although we were assured of permissions for international carriers in a couple of months after commencement, we were told by the Ministry of Civil Aviation that they were not in a position to allow KIAL to operate foreign carriers whereas it will remain an international gateway with only Indian carriers operating international sectors," said Thulasidas.
"We had brought this factor to the attention of the MoCA secretary and the official assured that they will assess the scenario in 6 months. But no action was visible till now. This was the primary reason why there were less number of flights and with less number of flights, fares to this sector naturally went high forcing passengers to abandon this airport because most of the passengers were with just average financial capacity," Thulasidas.
Despite these issues, the airport, which was opened in Dec 2018, made huge profits by 2019 and it was a golden year for the airport as both domestic and international flights were operating from Kannur.
"We crossed 1milion passengers in this short period. If more were allowed to operate, the momentum would have been high." For an airport, the majority of its revenue comes from international flight operations while domestic doesn't bring in much money. And the revenue increases if the flights are wide bodied whereas domestic services and narrow bodied aircraft don't fetch much.
Cargo operations gave KIAL upper hand as it promoted perishable cargo. Again, the quantity of cargo which can be carried on narrow bodied was less resulting in lower revenues.
When GoFirst stopped the services, it was another blow to the airport because majority of expatriates from the north Kerala and the nearby places were dependent on the carrier because it offered affordable rates.
“As if now, only Air India Express and Indigo are operating from Kannur. Air India used to operate from Kannur but after the privatisation, it stopped. Had GoFirst been operating from Kannur, it would have been a great respite for us.”
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