Thiruvananthapuram: Air India's first direct flight service between Cochin and London became operational on Wednesday.
At 3.18 am, Air India dreamliner (AI 150) from London landed at Cochin with 221 passengers. Later at 5.57 am, the flight AI 149 departed for Heathrow with 232 passengers on board.
The Cochin International Airport Ltd has informed that from August 22, three direct services will operate between London and Cochin on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Though an increasingly large number of Keralites fly to European countries no airlines used to operate direct flight from the State until today.
Travellers from Kerala bound for European cities had to reach metro cities such as Mumbai or Delhi or Middle East hubs like Doha or Dubai to take connecting flights to Europe. Even though Air India's recent decision to start a direct flight from Kochi to London is a step in the right direction, it is inadequate considering the number of flyers.
CIAL survey points to good traffic
The Cochin International Airport Ltd authorities had conducted a study on the traffic volume and intended destinations of people flying abroad from its airport at Nedumbassery.
A significant finding of this 2018-19 survey was that bout 1.85 lakh people flew to Europe every year from the Nedumbasserry airport. The number includes foreign tourists returning after visiting India and Keralites travelling to Europe. This means every year at least 3.7 lakh people travel between Kerala and Europe.
Many of the outbound flyers opt for airports in Gulf countries as their transit halt. They change flights on reaching the Gulf countries. Or they travel from Kochi to Bengaluru, Mumbai and even Delhi to catch a direct flight to Europe.
Air India service not enough
As per the CIAL survey cited above London is the destination for 56,000 out of the 1.85 lakh people flying from Kochi to Europe. This means that the same number of people are coming here from London or the total traffic volume between the two points is 1.12 lakh annually. Therefore, the number of average daily passengers comes to 300.
The Air India has announced a month's schedule for the Kochi-London sector. The Dreamliner aircraft arranged by the Air India has 238 economy class seats and 18 business class seats and all these seats were fully booked as soon as the schedule was announced early this month. But as per the study more flights are required to cater to the demand.
If calculated with the number of passengers travelling to Europe every year, the average would come to more than 500 passengers daily. This indicates that Kochi has passengers enough for operating two Dreamliner aircraft daily.
Direct European flights would pave the way for arrival of more tourists to Kerala. This would infuse fresh energy into Kerala's tourism sector which has been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the big question is why Air India which operates direct flights from seven cities in India neglected Kerala so far? Will the national airline which has announced a direct flight from Kochi to London for a month make it a permanent service?
Uncertainty continues to prevail on the issue. But one thing is clear that there shouldn't be any delay on the part of political leadership to intervene in this matter.
(This is the first part of a special series in the wake of Air India announcing direct services between Cochin and London.)
