THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Air travellers have every reason to be on cloud nine. The weekly air traffic movement from Thiruvananthapuram airport is set to increase to 540 from the existing 348 thereby bringing more connectivity to the capital. The new summer schedule will be effective from March 27 and this will have a multitude of new flight services with weekly traffic getting increased. The new destinations that have been added include Bangkok, Salala, and Hanimadhoo in Maldives.
The new destinations have been added by airlines after finding good traffic to these destinations. The air carriers have received permission to increase services from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Some airlines have already opened bookings while others will open booking facility soon. “This is the summer schedule. It is a six-month schedule from March to October 29 and it is entirely dependent on the airlines on when they would start the services. Some have already opened the booking for the same. We are seeing a good response with the earlier increase in air services. The daily air travel which had dipped to around 3000 has now increased to an average of 7000 per day,” said a source at the airport.
The weekly flight departures to 14 international destinations will increase to 138 from the existing 95. More flights will take off from the capital to Sharjah with 30 departures weekly. The other additional flight services per week include 18 to Doha, 17 each to Muscat and Dubai, 11 to Abu Dhabi, 8 to Singapore, 7 to Male, 7 to Bahrain, 7 to Colombo, 7 to Hong Kong, 4 to Kuwait, 2 to Riyadh, 2 to Hanimadhoo and 1 to Salalah. The scheduled departures to domestic destinations include 28 to Bengaluru, 23 to Mumbai, 14 each to Chennai and Delhi, 14 to Hyderabad, 7 to Kolkata, 7 to Kochi, 7 to Pune, 7 to Kannur, 7 to Durgapur and 4 to Calicut. With more international and domestic air services at the Trivandrum Airport, air travel is also expected to become less expensive.
The weekly domestic flight departures to 12 destinations will go up to 132 from the existing 79. There will be 28 departures to Bengaluru alone, considering the frequent air passengers to the metro city. Mumbai comes second with 23 departures.
The new destinations on the list include Kolkata, Pune and Durgapur.