Hubballi airport set to be busiest in North Karnataka

HUBBALLI: With the commencement of new flights, Hubballi airport will be one of the busiest airports in north Karnataka. The airport, which handles an average 12 flights every day, will handle about 20 flights from July 1.
The people of north Karnataka are already flying to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai from the upgraded Hubballi airport. Air India and SpiceJet have commenced flights to the cities. IndiGo will begin flights to Goa and Kochi from June 28. The low-cost carrier is also starting flights to Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru from July 1. With this, Hubballi will be connected with major destinations by air.

Hubballi airport authorities said connectivity to more destinations means more flight movements. Hubballi airport Director Ahilya S Kakodikar told TOI, “We handled 12 flights on Thursday. The flight movements will increase further in the days to come. The airport will handle about 20 flights a day from July.”

With this, Hubballi airport will outperform the Belagavi and Vijayanagar Jindal airports which are also serving flights under regional connectivity scheme (RCS). Belagavi is connected with Bengaluru by air while Jindal airport to Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Recently, SpiceJet shifted its operations from Belagavi to Hubballi. As part of it, direct flight from Belagavi to Chennai was changed to Hubballi to Chennai.

The Hubballi airport was upgraded recently to match the requirements of international flights too. It was the long pending demand of the people of north Karnataka to have a full-fledged international level airport in Hubballi. Airbus aircraft also operate from here. Airport sources say the new 3,600 square metre terminal, which is a centrally air-conditioned, has the capacity to handle 300 peak hour passengers at a time. The airport is also capable of handling many more flights, they add.