| Aviation:
Kuwait Airways Expands Reach
Trivandrum, India,
Mar. 12 2002 (INS News) -- Kuwait Airways is will become the third foreign airliner to
fly regularly to the Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery
when its maiden flight touches the airport at 06:00 hrs (local
time) on March 25, according to the airport authorities.
The flights
will reach the airport on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays
on a code-sharing basis with the Air India (AI). The Emirates
Airlines, which is currently operating from Delhi, Mumbai,
Hyderabad and Chennai, will also start services by the yearend
to the country’s only corporate airport, promoted mainly by
the non-resident Keralites, the authorities said.
Oman Airways
and SilkAir are the other international carriers operating
from the airport along with Air India. The authorities hope
to ease the difficulties of the Gulf-bound passengers and
to give a boost to the state’s tourism potential with the
increasing connectivity to various Gulf destinations as well
as Europe.
The three
weekly flights from Kochi to Kuwait will depart at 7:30 am
while the flights from Kuwait will leave at 11 pm on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Sundays and reach Kochi the next day. The A-300
aircraft has a seating capacity of 232 seats, from which AI
will get 30 seats.
AI already
has a weekly service from Kochi to Kuwait on Wednesdays and
from Kuwait to Kochi on Wednesdays and Saturdays with its
own Airbus 310 aircraft.
Oman Air
and Silk Air are currently operating five flights a week from
the airport. Several other airlines, including Saudia, Gulf
Air, Qatar Airways, Yeen Airways, Aeroflot and Uzbekistan
Airways are waiting in the wings.
Oman Air
had its maiden flight to the airport on August 22 last year
while Silk Air commenced its operations on October 28 on a
code-sharing basis with Air India. The debt-ridden airport
authorities expect to increase its revenue in a big way from
the arrival of more international flights.
The Cochin
International Airport Limited (CIAL), which opened the airport
in 1999, is India’s first state-of-the-art international airport
built with the participation of the people, mostly non-resident
Keralites (NRK) from 30 countries.
Meanwhile,
the frequency of the Sri Lankan Airlines and Oman Air flights
from the international airport here has been increased providing
more links to the Gulf, Far East and to Europe from the state
capital. Both the airlines are now joining Gulf Air and Qatar
Airways in offering daily flights to the Gulf destinations
from here.
Sri Lankan
Airlines, which is operating the Airbus-320 aircraft with
a carrying capacity of 140 passengers—129 in economy class
and 11 in business class, will operate daily flights from
March 28 while Oman Air will follow suit from March 31. The
flight will arrive from Colombo at 09:15 hrs and depart at
10:45 hrs and will provide immediate connections to Dubai,
Riyadh, Muscat, Abu Dhabi, London and Singapore from Colombo.
Passengers
to the Far East, Middle East, Europe and Gulf destinations
will benefit from the increased frequency.
Oman Air
will increase its frequency from the present five to six days
a week from March 31 and to daily flights from June 1 using
a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which can accommodate 165 passengers,
including 12 in the business class.
-- Ashraf
Padanna - Correspondent in Trivandrum, India
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