Kannur International Airport is operational, maiden flight to Abu Dhabi a success

The Kannur International Airport is now operational and travellers certainly have a reason to rejoice; its opening was celebrated with an inaugural flight on Sunday. The flight carrying 186 passengers was flagged off from the airport with Abu Dhabi as its destination. The state of Kerala now has four international airports, with Kannur as the latest one after Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, and Kozhikode. Being in the Malabar region of Kerala, Kannur is now the second airport here after the one at Kozhikode.
While the first flight was an Air India Express flight, reports suggest that budget carriers such as GoAir will soon be launching direct domestic flights from the Kannur International Airport. The direct flight services would be to Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Furthermore, the airline is also going to operate a special flight between Delhi and Kannur.
The Kannur airport took about INR 2350 crore to get built and is expected to boost tourism in these areas, such as Kannur, Wayanad, and Kasargode. Air India Express is going to operate international flights to not only Abu Dhabi, but also Doha, Riyadh, and Sharjah from the Kannur International Airport.

Estimated to handle 1.5 million international passengers annually, the Kannur International Airport is able to handle 2000 passengers at a time. 9.39 per cent of the airport’s stake belongs to the Airports Authority of India (AAI), while the rest has been divided between the Kerala government, and state and central public sector undertakings.