New terminal to open at CIAL

Kochi: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the domestic operations at the renovated Terminal-1 of the Cochin International Airport and enhancement of the solar power production capacity at the airport to 40 MWp on December 12.

As there was a steady growth in the number of domestic passengers, the renovation work at Terminal-1 which was earlier handling international operations, was started one-and-a-half years ago, after the commissioning of the international Terminal 3.

The Terminal-1, which was re-constructed as per global standards with Kerala architectural design, will be opened to passengers by third week of December. CIAL managing director, Mr V.J.Kurian  said the domestic aviation market in India has been witnessing a stupendous growth.

“India became world’s largest domestic aviation market in 2017. The national YOY growth in this sector is 18 per cent whereas CIAL has been experiencing 24 per cent. Already airlines companies registered in India operate 559 aircraft. This is going to be doubled in next five years. Airport  operators need to address this growth. CIAL has handled nearly 5 million domestic passengers in 2017-18. The domestic traffic will touch 10 million in another five years. All these factors are taken into consideration during each stage of renovation at Terminal-1,” Kurian said.

At present, the total capacity of the solar plants is 30 MW. As the Terminal-1 is ready for operation, the production capacity has to be increased to meet the complete power needs of the airport. The project to install solar panels on the roof of the car park at Terminal-1 was part of this. As the airport receives the power from these panels the total solar power capacity will be raised to 40 MWp.

CIAL sets another record as an airport having largest solar carport in the world, surpassing the Wieze International Airport, Germany, with facility to house 2600 cars with an installed capacity of 5.1 MWp.