City may get direct flights to Surat, Kolkata in near future

Coimbatore: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is likely to approach airlines to begin direct operations to Surat and Kolkata from the city, post the elections. This has been a long pending demand from the city’s sizeable Gujarati and Bengali trading community and industrialists. AAI is also looking at the possibility of introducing one more international flight to another destination in South East Asia. If everything goes well, the city airport would see further growth in passenger traffic.
Though the passenger traffic went up by 25% to 30 lakh in 2018 from 24 lakh in 2017, the city airport’s performance was below the airports in tier II cities such as Kozhikode, Trivandrum, Guwuhati and Bhubaneshwar. This was despite most of the flights departing the city reporting more than 75%-80% occupancy. Authorities have attributed this to the lack of adequate connectivity.
“The city will definitely benefit from a direct connectivity to the eastern part of the country, which is missing, and maybe another destination in North India,” said Deepak Shastri, former regional executive director, southern region of AAI.
City airport officials confirmed that AAI was planning to approach private airlines and Air India after the elections and suggest they could consider introducing direct flights between Coimbatore and Kolkata, and Coimbatore and Surat. “We are trying to get airlines to introduce flights to these destinations, because there is a handsome number of frequent fliers to these two cities, if not every day, at least a few days of the week,” Shastri said.
Girija, station manager of Air India, Coimbatore, said they have begun studying the possibility of operating flights to Kolkata and Ahmedabad. “We are looking at statistics available with the director general of civil aviation website, speaking to travel agents and industrialists. We will moot the idea in a couple of months and hope that at least one of them gets included in the winter schedule this year.”
She, however, said these routes would work only with a stop in between, either Bengaluru en route to Kolkata or Hyderabad en route to Ahmedabad. But it will be a short stop and passengers won’t get delayed much due to it.”
Industrialists said they had been demanding direct flights to Kolkata and Gujarat for more than a year, due to repeated requests from the Gujarati and Rajasthani trading community, which has a strong presence in the city. “Both being textile hubs, it is an oft-travelled route by even other textile mill owners and cotton traders,” said a member of the city chapter of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries.