TIRUCHY: The international airport's winter schedule taking effect on October 29 brings with it hope for the city's travel sector. Among the new operations are an additional flight to Chennai, a daily flight to Mumbai and a flight to Vietnam for the period of the winter schedule which ends on March 30, 2024.
Despite high expectations of a daily flight to Delhi, no such flight has yet been announced. Senior officials, however, said talks are on with various operators for it. At present, Tiruchy Airport operates four daily flights to Chennai, three to Bengaluru and one to Hyderabad.
From October 29, the number of daily flights to Chennai will be increased to five, and IndiGo will start operations on the Tiruchy-Mumbai route after a gap of over two years from November 4. The flight will leave Tiruchy at 3.40 pm and reach Mumbai at 5.40 pm.
Similarly, the airport currently operates flights to Kuwait, Singapore, Sharjah, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Doha, Muscat and Abu Dhabi. Starting November 4, Vietjet will commence operations between Tiruchy and Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. This flight will be available on every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Officials believe said the new services would increase footfall in the airport by at least 10%. "On average, 4,000 international passengers and 1,200 domestic passengers pass through Tiruchy airport every day. The new flights to Chennai, Mumbai, and Vietnam will lead to a 10% increase in passenger footfall in Tiruchy," a senior airport official said.
Airline officials said that the push in footfall would also attract more operations to Tiruchy. "Tiruchy is the second largest airport in Tamil Nadu and there is a good response on most existing routes. Since Tiruchy-Mumbai is a potential route it will have 90% occupancy on most days.
We are expecting good response to operations to Vietnam," an airline official said. Meanwhile, travel operators said that airport officials should hold talks with more airlines to increase operations. "We are glad to have operations to Mumbai and Vietnam. But, this is not enough and efforts must be taken to get operations to Delhi, Thailand and other destinations," said N Ramesh, a travel agent.