More foreign flights to Kochi soon

By Our Special Correspondent

KOCHI, AUG. 23. With the landing of the Oman Air's first flight to Kochi on August 22, hopes in the minds of the expatriate Malayalis have soared. Now is the time to look forward to more direct flights from the Gulf region to Kerala and the Gulf settlers are in an upbeat mood what with two more foreign airlines expected to start operation to Kochi soon.

It was a VVIP welcome for the 200-odd passengers who alighted on the maiden flight from Oman at Nedumbasserry on the wee hours of Wednesday. The Kerala Tourism Minister, Prof. K.V. Thomas was on hand to receive the passengers. Special cultural programmes including `Kaikottikali' was staged keeping up with the spirit of the Onam festival, when the flight landed at Muscat and the passengers were given Kerala food like `idiappam' and `kappa'.

According to Mr. Abdul Rahman Al Busiady, general manager of Oman Air, the airlines has been given traffic rights to operate scheduled flights to Kochi. This follows bilateral discussions between the Union Civil Aviation Department and its counterpart in the Sultanate of Oman at Delhi this week. The understanding reached is for Oman Air to operate 600 weekly seats to Kochi. The airlines was also granted 400 additional seats to be deployed between Oman and each of Mumbai and Chennai per week. The designated Indian carriers have been granted reciprocal capacity increase and have been granted Salalah as an additional point of operation in the Sultanate of Oman.

The airline is also arranging for local endorsement so that passengers can travel from Kochi to Muscat even if they were holding a ticket from Thiruvananthapuram, officials of the Oman airways told mediapersons here last night. Muscat would be the hub for the passengers in the Gulf proceeding to Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

According to sources here, Oman Air will be operating three weekly flights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays which will be increased to four weekly flights by adding Saturday also in the schedule with effect from September 1.

Meanwhile, according to Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) sources here, the Civil Aviation Ministry has agreed to allow foreign airlines to operate to and from Cochin International Airport even without going for bilateral discussions, but subject to a commercial agreement reached with Air India.

According to Mr. Babu C. Rajeev, CIAL Managing Director, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen Airways could operate to and from this airport once a commercial agreement was reached between them and Air India. However, other foreign airlines viz., the Singapore Airlines and a couple of European airlines which had been showing interest, would be allowed to operate to Nedumbassery after concluding the necessary bilateral agreements with the respective Governments.

Mr. Rajeev said that CIAL was on the road to profit though the debt servicing was taking a toll on the margins. The current operational surplus works out to nearly Rs. 1.85 crores but this was being offset because of the monthly debt servicing to the tune of Rs. 2.85 crores.

Among the expansion plans, the earliest to materialise may be the duty-free shop which has been a major demand of the tourists. The shop would become operational by October-end as the work on this was going on in full swing.

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