Nedumbassery: No flights would operate from the Cochin International Airport during the daytime from Wednesday (November 20) due to the re-carpeting works on the runway. The flight services would be cancelled for eight hours from 10 am to 6 pm.
The Rs 151-crore re-carpeting works would be held from November 20 to March 28, 2020.
Flights cancelled
Currently, the Cochin airport in Kerala's Ernakulam district handles 240 flight operations in a day.
In the international sector, the Maldives service of the Spice Jet would be cancelled.
In the domestic sector, a Chennai service of the Spice Jet, another Chennai service of the Air India, an Ahmedabad service of the Go Air, and Mysuru service of the Alliance Air have been cancelled.
Pilgrims to Sabarimala are also going to be affected by these cancellations.
Rescheduled services
Air India's flight to Jeddah, Sri Lankan Airlines' flight to Colombo, and Kuwait Airways' services to Kuwait have been rescheduled after 6 pm.
Thirty-five domestic services have been rescheduled such that they would either operate before 10 am or after 6 pm.
Check-in time
Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) authorities have taken steps to control the passenger rush has the operational hours of the airport has been reduced to 16 hours from 24 hours.
Domestic passengers would have to check-in three hours prior to the flight. Currently, they have to check-in only 1.5 hours before the flight.
And international passengers have to arrive four hours prior to the flight timing for check-in. Now, it is only three hours.
Runway re-carpeting
The runway re-carpeting is carried out every 10 years. The Cochin Airport started functioning in 1999 and the first re-carpeting works were held in 2009. The 3,400-metre-long runway has a width of 60 metres. The re-tarring is done on the 5 lakh sq-metres, including the taxiway.
The area, where the re-tarring is completed, would be made operational by that evening itself.
Along with the completion of the runway renovation, the runway lighting system of the Cochin airport would be raised to the Category III. Currently, the lighting system is on Category I, in which the lights have been fixed at a distance of 30 metres. However, the distance between the lights would be reduced to 15 metres to upgrade to Category III.
1,350 CISF personnel
About 950 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel have been currently deployed at the Cochin airport for security checks. An additional 400 personnel would reach the airport in the coming days, taking the total number of CISF personnel to 1,350. Duty timings of the customs and immigration departments have been rescheduled to ensure the availability of the officials.
