Kannur Airport (IATA: CNN) which was inaugurated on 9th of December 2018 could see rapid international connectivity if airlines decide to utilize the rights allocated to them.
While Air India Express – the low cost arm of national carrier Air India started operations on 9th of December with flight to Abu Dhabi, Jet Airways, IndiGo and Go Air have lined up international plans as per the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s answer in Lok Sabha – the lower house of Indian parliament.
Jet Airways has been allocated rights to service 7 frequencies per week to Abu Dhabi from Kannur. IndiGo has been granted rights to fly to Kuwait and Doha – 6 times a week each and Jeddah and Dammam – daily. While Kuwait is connected from Ahmedabad, Chennai & Kochi and Doha is connected from eight points in India by IndiGo, the airline is yet to launch services to Jeddah and Dammam. Go Air has been allotted rights to fly daily between Kannur and Muscat, Dammam and Abu Dhabi. The airline which launched international services recently, is yet to look beyond Phuket and Male for its services.
Air India Express which is the current operator has rights to fly to Muscat & Doha (4x weekly each), Riyadh (3x weekly), Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah (Daily). The airline is already operating thrice a week service to Abu Dhabi (4 less than permitted), thrice a week service to Riyadh, four times a week to Doha and Sharjah.
Kannur International Airport is a greenfield airport and built under Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. It is the fourth International airport in the state of Kerala. IndiGo will start its domestic operations with the ATR aircraft from 25th January 2019 and connect Kannur to Hyderabad, Bengaluru Chennai and Hubli while Go Air will operate the A320 to connect Kannur to Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.
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