Kerala: Commercial flight operations from Kochi Naval Base from tomorrow
What's the story
The Center yesterday said Kerala's Kochi Naval Base will be thrown open for commercial flight operations from the morning of August 20, bringing a huge relief to people awaiting the resumption of air service from Kochi. The main Kochi International Airport has been rendered non-functional from August 14 due to flooding and torrential rains and would remain closed till August 26. Here's more.
Twitter Post
Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu's tweets regarding commercial flight operations
In view of disruption of flights from Cochin airport due to floods, a joint team sent by @MoCA_GoI has approved starting of scheduled commercial flights using ATRs by Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, between Bangalore and Cochin Naval Air base. #KeralaFloods
— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) August 18, 2018
Twitter Post
Flight operations between Bengaluru, Cochin Naval Airbase start from tomorrow
The flight operations between Bangalore and Cochin Naval Airbase will be starting from 20th August morning. More destinations such as Coimbatore, Madurai are also in the pipeline. Other airlines are likely to join this effort too. All possible steps are being taken #KeralaFloods
— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) August 18, 2018
Proving flight
Alliance Air operated a non-commercial 'proving flight' on ATR aircraft
Yesterday, Alliance Air operated a non-commercial "proving flight" on an ATR (turboprop) aircraft to Kochi's Naval Base with a team of officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Airports Authority of India (AAI) and other flight safety officials to examine the feasibility of having operations from the base. The naval base would be used to operate the 70-seater ATR aircraft.
Additional flights
Private carriers would also operate additional flights from tomorrow
Private carriers such as IndiGo and GoAir yesterday said they would be operating additional flights to and from Kozhikode, Coimbatore, and Trivandrum from tomorrow till August 25 to different parts of the country. A list of flight timings of the ATRs that would be operating from the base to Bengaluru and Coimbatore has also been released by the Ministry.
Twitter Post
#KeralaFloodRescue: Schedule for Alliance Air flights
Schedule for Alliance Air flights for #Kerala #KeralaFloodRescue #KeralaRelief pic.twitter.com/iYerdheqwg
— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) August 18, 2018