Pondy, Salem, Vellore airports grounded

Chennai: SpiceJet flights SG 3597 and SG 1083 were cancelled along with their pairing flights on December 17 and 18, leaving the southern port city of Tuticorin bereft of the sole air link that connected it to Chennai and ruining several passengers’ travel plans. Tuticorin had become SpiceJet’s 31st destination in its nationwide network in 2011 when it was announced that the Pearl City would be connected to Chennai by a daily flight. Later, the airline increased the frequency to two services per day.  
 

“We hope and pray that they will not discontinue their service. The Chennai flight is the only one flying out of Tuticorin. More importantly, their operations are profitable and consistently enjoy a load factor of nearly 90 per cent,” said D. Jayakumar, assistant general manager (communications), Tuticorin airport. Tuticorin airport came about in 1991 to facilitate Vayudoot’s operations, this being a state-owned carrier that ceased operations in 1997. It was subsequently refurbished by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to reactivate the long dormant airport, located 15 km away from the city centre.

Mr Jayakumar said that their future plans included moving into a new terminal besides extending the runway length to 3,000 m from 1,300 m. “Tuticorin is a emerging port city with a diversified economic base. There is a huge potential for export-oriented activities that airlines should not ignore,” he added.  While Tuticorin is currently pinning its hopes on SpiceJet for continued air connectivity, other airports in the state have not been as lucky.

In 2006, the AAI (Southern Region) embarked on a plan to reactivate the then idle airports at Salem, Tuticorin, Vellore and Puducherry. Barring Vellore, where the runway still resembles nothing more than an earthen strip of land, AAI began to improve facilities at the other three airports. Originally constructed back in 1993, Salem airport had to endure a 16-year wait before scheduled passenger flights could begin flying into the fifth most populous city of Tamil Nadu.

“Despite having a fully operational airport and the emergence of new carriers, including Indigo, there were no takers for Salem,” recalls K. Mariappan, vice president of the Salem District Small Scale and Tiny Industries Association. Kingfisher Airlines decided to introduce a daily service on the Chennai-Salem route in November 2009. However, in a little over two years’ time, the last flight flew on August 4, 2011, before it was withdrawn. The airline cited poor patronage as the reason behind their move.

“Ever since, we have been petitioning the authorities to encourage airlines to consider Salem. If the airport is reactivated, more than one crore residents of Salem, Dharmapuri, Namakkal and Erode districts will benefit. Now, they are forced to travel by road or use Coimbatore and Bengaluru airports,” Mr Mariappan said.

The same scenario is also prevalent at the Puducherry airport, where a new terminal building was inaugurated at a cost of about Rs 50 crore in 2012.The lone service started by SpiceJet in January 2013, connecting the union territory with Bengaluru, was withdrawn in February this year. Deprived of scheduled services, “The airport is used by charter flights (two or three services per week), coast guard and the oriental flight school,” airport director R. Venkatachalapathy said.

With about 16 staff members on the roll, minimum maintenance of the facilities is carried out periodically, he said. When contacted, H.S. Suresh, regional executive director, AAI (Southern Region) said airports, such as Vellore and Salem, were ‘unviable airports’. “Airlines, these days, do their own study and continue on routes only if they are profitable. Salem, despite being a big commercial centre with the presence of SAIL, couldn’t quite generate enough numbers to justify flying there,” he said.

In the case of Puducherry, he said, “The local government was extremely keen on pushing through the airport modernisation process and it was hoped that there would be enough tourists driving up the load factor, but  unavailability of land to extend the runway and  the immediate vicinity of Chennai airport threaten its viability.”