KIA winter schedule: 2 new airlines, 7 new destinations

The winter schedule of the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), released officially on Friday, shows two new airlines and seven new destinations, both domestic and international. With this, Bengaluru will have flight linkages to 82 destinations, 25 of them foreign.

The five-month schedule, which commenced on October 26, 2019, will be in effect until March 28, 2020. The two new airlines are Ethiopian Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch, connecting Bengaluru to two new cities, KIA operator, Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) informed.

Ethiopian Airlines will offer four weekly non-stop flights to Addis Ababa, considered to be the gateway to Africa, while KLM Royal Dutch will operate three weekly flights to Amsterdam.

The five new domestic destinations include Jaisalmer (Spice Jet, six weekly flights from November 16), Jodhpur (Indigo, daily from October 27), Jharsuguda (Spice Jet, daily from November 16), Bidar (TrueJet, daily from December 1) and Tuticorin (Indigo, daily from October 27).

At the start of Winter 2019, the airport is expected to achieve Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) of about 700 per day (611 domestic and 89 international). As the season progresses, the daily ATMs are expected to reach 727 (635 Domestic and 92 International), a BIAL release said.

The hourly runway capacity will continue to be 40 movements per hour. “The average international ATMs for Winter 2019-20 is expected to grow at 12% over Summer 2019, while domestic movements are expected to achieve a growth of 16%. The overall growth forecast for the forthcoming schedule is pegged at 16%.”

The top international airline during this schedule by ATMs will be Indigo with 17.9% market share of overseas operations, while Air India is second with 9.7%. On the domestic front, Indigo continues to lead with 51.2% market share, while Spice Jet is at second with 15.7%.