THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Owing to the rising demand from NRI passengers, Air India Express has increased the number of services from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The number of weekly services to both places has been increased from five to six. The new service will be operational on Mondays. With this, the number of weekly services from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai has increased to 28 and Abu Dhabi to 40.
In November last year, Air India Express started services from Thiruvananthapuram to Bahrain and Dammam. Air India Express is the single largest airline operator from Thiruvananthapuram in terms of the number of international flights with 70 weekly services.
Now, Thiruvananthapuram airport has a weekly frequency of more than 131 domestic and 120 international flights. The connectivity has increased to 12 international destinations, including Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Muscat, Bahrain, Dammam, Kuwait, Singapore, Colombo, Male, and Hanimaadhoo, and 10 domestic destinations, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Kochi, and Kannur.
The weekly air traffic movement from Thiruvananthapuram airport is set to increase in the coming months, thereby bringing more connectivity to the state capital. The new summer schedule started from March 27 and this has a multitude of new services with weekly traffic getting increased.
Akasa Airlines, the low-cost airline, is expected to start its service soon. Recently, Vistara has started two new daily services to New Delhi and Air India Express has also started more flights in the sector. The average number of passengers relying on Thiruvananthapuram airport has doubled in the past two years.