Air Kerala not to fly for now

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the Centre has relaxed the conditions for international flight services, the state government seems to have kept the Air Kerala project in abeyance owing to concerns over its feasibility. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is learnt to have expressed apprehensions over the feasibility of the project during the Cochin International Airport Limited's (CIAL) board meeting here on Thursday.

The board meeting declared a dividend of 25 per cent for 2015-16 fiscal. CIAL’s turnover during the period was Rs 524.54 crore and profit Rs 175.22 crore, said a statement.

According to sources, though the Air Kerala project was discussed at the meeting the Chief Minister was quite apprehensive whether it would be viable. Though the Centre  lifted the five-year mandatory domestic service rule for commencing international services, a minimum of 20 aircrafts would be still required.

This involved huge fiscal burden and it would be difficult to operate the service at least in a no profit no loss status. Hence. the Chief Minister did not show much interest in taking forward the project at present. The board meeting also reviewed the functioning of CIAL which aims at a turnover of Rs 3,000 crore by 2023.

Compared to the previous fiscal the the turnover increased by 26.7 per cent and profit by 21.19 per cent. The Nedumbasserry airport now stands at fourth place among the Indian airports in terms of number of international passengers and in seventh place in terms of total passenger movement, which stands at over 77 lakhs.