Thiruvananthapuram: Even as the Union Government is moving ahead with its move to privatize the Trivandrum International Airport, four major airlines are pulling back their services from here. These include the Saudi Airlines, Fly Dubai, Jet Airways and Spice Jet.

While Jet Airways and Spice Jet are citing financial crunch for the cutting back, Saudi Airlines and Fly Dubai are shifting their operations to Kannur and Kozhikode airports as the majority of their passengers are from these destinations.

The Saudi Airlines was operating services to Jidda and Riyad three days a week, which were started last year. Though there were enough passengers in the beginning, later the numbers dwindled, forcing the airlines to try their luck at the newly opened Kannur International Airport. Fly Dubai, which used to operate four days a week to Dubai, is also being forced to stop operations due to a declining number of passengers.

The crisis-ridden Jet Airways had already stopped many of their services including the Dubai flight. Services to Damam will also be wound up soon. Silk Air had already decided to hand over the Thiruvananthapuram operations to Scoot, their own domestic airline.

However, the Airport Authority of India officials are apparently at a loss as to why the airlines are suspending their operations from an airport which is showing a rise in passenger traffic. They also maintain that they can't intervene in the internal matters of the airlines.

Tharoor demands for more Air India services

Shashi Tharoor, MP, has demanded the airlines to revoke their decision to suspend the services as it was causing hardships to the passengers. He also demanded that Air India should start operating more services to Thiruvananthapuram in order to ward off the crisis created by the suspension of services. He also demanded that larger aircraft with more passenger capacity should be introduced. Tharoor said he has raised these issues with Air India Chief Pradeep Singh Kharola who promised to consider the requests.

Suspension of Services due to internal issues

The Trivandrum International Airport Director C V Raveendran has said that some airlines were suspending their operations from Thiruvananthapuram mainly due to their own internal issues including financial crunch. He informed that Indigo Airlines and Go Air have expressed their willingness to start operating services to Kochi and Kannur from Thiruvananthapuram.

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