Date:24/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/24/stories/2006112402041900.htm

Business

CIAL draws up ambitious plans

K. Venkiteswaran

Rs.3,500-crore plan to earn revenue from commercial utilisation of 440 acres

Shriram Bharath

KOCHI: Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) has drawn up a massive Rs.3,500-crore master plan to earn revenue from commercial utilisation of 440 acres under its ownership.

Talking to The Hindu at the airport here on Thursday, CIAL managing director Shriram Bharath said the stress was on `charter tourism' to attract international tourists to Kerala. This will boost the revenue of the State as well as that of CIAL.

A leisure centre planned as an extension of the infrastructure at the airport will have an 18-hole golf course measuring up to international standards. In the second phase, a convention centre, two five star hotels, and two budget hotels to support the golf course are planned. The leisure centre will be declared open for international tourists and efforts made to promote `golf tourism,' he said.

Answering a question, he said it would take two years to complete the leisure project, most likely by March 2009.Funds are to be raised through equity and partly through debt. A subsidiary company of CIAL will be formed to have a joint venture to raise resources for the projects.

He said CIAL was already in talks with international tour operators to bring chartered flights from Europe. Western travellers are very much in awe of Kerala, which offers beautiful backwaters, rolling hills and sand and sea, besides its natural beauty and alluring ethnic culture. It will be a back-to-back package, which means that a potential tourist sitting in Europe can order on the computer the arrangements regarding his/her travel, hotel accommodation, food, and sight-seeing and return back home at the click of a button. Chartered tourism offers much scope for the State as well as CIAL by way of handling charges, aircraft maintenance, fuel and other revenue.

CIAL is very much into Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) and is in the process of forming a subsidiary company, Cochin International Aviation Services Limited (CIASL), to have hangars.

An aviation academy to train engineers and cabin crew is to come up. Simulators to give a real life experience to the trainees would be established. In the first phase, two narrow body hangars to accommodate A 320s are planned at a cost of Rs.150 crore each. A total of six hangars are to be put up in the next five years.

Two hangars will be wide-body ones to house A 380s and Boeing 747s.