The Mangaluru International Airport is all set for a summer schedule which will come into effect from March 27.
The weekly aircraft movements from Mangaluru International Airport will go up from the existing 78 to 112, if the tentative summer schedules filed by the airlines are any indication.
A move by the Director-General of Civil Aviation to permit scheduled commercial international passenger services from March 27 will give resultant thrust for connecting domestic commercial airline services as well. The MIA is set for a sharp increase in daily movements, adding newer destinations.
As things stand, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India and GoFirst airlines are operating flights from Mangaluru to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Coimbatore. Of the 78 weekly flights from Mangaluru now, IndiGo has the lion’s share of weekly aircraft movements at 57 connecting Mangaluru to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. SpiceJet has eight movements -- four each to Bengaluru and Hyderabad, Air India has seven movements to Coimbatore and GoFirst has six to Mumbai.
As per the tentative summer schedule filed by the airlines, weekly movements of IndiGo will go up to 77; SpiceJet will go up to 14 – all to Bengaluru; Air India will remain at seven – all direct to Mumbai rather than via Coimbatore as the airline operates now and GoFirst will jump to 14 – all to Mumbai.
According to a spokesperson of Mangaluru International Airport, IndiGo has also proposed a new route to Pune with five movements each week.
SpiceJet will meet a long-standing expectation of people of coastal Karnataka with a daily flight to the national capital Delhi. Air India will now connect directly to Mumbai, the commercial capital of India with daily flights rather than via Coimbatore. The enhanced connectivity will give greater fillip to economic prosperity of the region.
The airport handled 1,03,273 passengers in the month of February. This included 74,862 domestic passengers through 903 aircraft movements including 630 domestic, 227 international and rest general aviation. This number has consistently been on the rise since October 2021 and is expected to go up further with the summer schedule.
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