No new destinations in Tiruchy airport's winter schedule but operations soar to pre-pandemic levels

TIRUCHY: Tiruchy international airport’s winter schedule, which came into effect on Sunday, includes no new destinations than the existing services to nine international and three domestic airports. The timetable till March 25, 2023, however, has restored operations to pre-pandemic levels by increasing flights to the airports in Bengaluru and Malaysia’s Kuala Lampur.

As per the current schedule, the airport operates about 20 daily flights, including those to Kuwait, Singapore, Sharjah, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Doha, Muscat and Abu Dhabi. In the domestic sector, the airport offers connectivity to Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. This is similar to the number of flight services that the airport operated before the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Though we didn't get any flights to new domestic and international destinations, we have touched almost 95 per cent of pre-pandemic level operations," a senior airport official said. Pointing to essential runway work since June making the airport suspend operations from 2 am to 7 pm, a source said, “In order to accommodate one more international flight in the winter schedule, we made a slight change in the operation suspension hours.

Since Saturday (October 29), the operations stand suspended from 3 am to 6.30 am. This will continue till January 31, 2023. The slight change helped us accommodate the operation of a Sharjah flight in the winter schedule. This daily flight lands at 2.30 am and takes off at 7 am. The airport had thus tried its best to ensure more operations." N Ramesh, a travel agent, said,

"Currently, we operate about four daily flights each to Singapore and Malaysia. We are getting so many bookings on the route and also in Middle East operations. Operations at the airport are hence getting back on track. Though we expected operations to Delhi, Mumbai, Bahrain and Bangkok in the winter schedule, it hasn’t been so. We hope the airport takes steps to attract airliners to start operations to those destinations. In fact, some international operations are likely to use the slot between 3 am and 6.30 am once the regulations during the said period are lifted."

An airline official, however, said, “As Tiruchy is a potential airport, more airliners are likely to start operations here. In June, the passenger footfall at the airport was about 1.2 lakh. Currently, the airport witnesses an average footfall of 1.5 lakh passengers every month. This clearly reflects the potential of the airport. At present, airport officials expect the new terminal to be completed by June 2023. Many of us are expecting more operations from then."