134 weekly flights to UAE ; Thai Airways & VietJet increase frequency ; Additional daily flights to Chennai, Bangalore, Pune & Hyderabad
Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) announced its winter schedule which will be effective from 27th October 2024 till 29th March 2025. A total of 1576 weekly operations are the highlight of this schedule against 1480 operations for the ongoing summer schedule 2024. CIAL’s new schedule will see 28 airlines among which 26 are international carriers operating 336 weekly departures to international destinations. Air India Express tops the list with 51 weekly departures to international destinations whereas IndiGo will have 41 departure operations weekly. Etihad – 28, Air Arabia Abu Dhabi – 28, Air Asia – 18, Air India – 17, Air Arabia, Akasa, Emirates, Oman Air, Singapore Airlines – all 14, are other prominent carriers operating frequent weekly services. As per the new winter schedule, the total number of weekly services to UAE alone will be 134. There will be 67 weekly departures to Abu Dhabi alone. Whereas Dubai comes second with 46 operations from Cochin. Etihad will operate additional 7 weekly flights to Abu Dhabi whereas VietJet is all set to operate daily flights to Vietnam. Thai Airways increases the frequency from 3 to 5 weekly premium flights to Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok. With this, there will be 15 weekly services to Bangkok from Cochin. Coming to the domestic sector, weekly flight status in CIAL’s 2024 winter schedule includes 112 flights to Bangalore, 75 to Mumbai, 63 to Delhi, 61 to Chennai, 52 to Hyderabad, 15 flights to Agatti, 14 to Ahmedabad & Kolkata, 13 to Pune, 7 each to Calicut, Goa, Kannur and Thiruvananthapuram and 5 to Salem. Air India Express will operate additional 10 flights per week to Bangalore, 7 flights per week to Chennai, 6 to Pune and 5 weekly flights to Hyderabad. Akasa Air will operate additional daily flights to Ahmedabad. This results in a total of 788 arrivals and 788 departures each week, encompassing both international and domestic services.
In order to accommodate the surge in passenger traffic, CIAL is all set to expand its international terminal, T3. Foundation stone for the apron work was laid on 2nd October 2023, and has already completed the work of 11 lakhs sq.ft in 12 months. The total apron area will now be increased from 20 lakhs sq.ft to 36 lakhs sq.ft. With this new infrastructure, the number of parking bays will be increased from 44 to 52 and terminal area will be increased from 15 lakh sq.ft to 21 lakh sq.ft. This is expected to be completed in 2 years.