Kochi: With the Sabarimala mandala season entering the second week, the Kochi airport is witnessing a surge in the number of Ayyappa devotees going through the airport to the hill shrine from other states.
The Travancore Devaswom Board, which has failed to open a facilitation centre for the devotees at the airport so far, will open a centre on Friday after the CIAL authorities took up the issue with the TDB. In the previous years, it had run such a centre quite early in the season.
An average of 200 Ayyappa devotees are passing through the airport daily from Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai and other destinations. On certain days, the number goes up to over 250. The increase is 10 percent compared to the last season.
“The devotees mainly come from Chennai and Hyderabad and there are seven flights from Chennai and two from Hyderabad. Of the 180 seats, almost 25 are occupied by the devotees,” said a CIAL official. There are devotees coming from Bangalore, to where six daily flights are operated, and also Mumbai, from where 12 flights are operated every day.
Almost 80 percent of the devotees make use of the pre-paid taxi service facility at the airport to proceed to Pampa. There are two different tariffs for just dropping there and waiting for 12 hours. While the lower rate is Rs 4,200, the upper limit is Rs 6,120 for multi-utility vehicles.
