Cochin International Airport may gain from US curbs on Gulf airports
Techies are keen on having the laptops and iPad in the hand baggage as they can work during the long flying time.
KOCHI: The new US policy banning the passengers via Gulf airports from carrying laptops and iPads in their hand baggage has given fresh hopes for the Cochin international airport to start direct services to Europe and the United States. Gulf carriers like Kuwait Airways, Etihad, Qatar and Emirates take the lion’s share of passengers from Kochi to the US through their airports and the attempts of Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) to engage operators from Europe to start services via airports there to the US had come to naught because of the highly competitive fares offered by the Gulf carriers which could not be matched by European carriers.
One major reason pointed out by the European carriers for not starting direct flights from Kochi was that there are not enough business class passengers from Cochin airport to European hubs like London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt to sustain operations profitably on a daily basis. Because of this, even after the CIAL offered to waive ground handling charges for direct flights to Europe and US, airways like Lufthansa and British Airways did not start operations from Kochi. However, an aviation sector official said that the strengthening of the IT sector in Kochi by way of Infopark, Smart City and also in Thiruvananthapuram can work in favour of Kochi in this direction in due course, especially in the wake of the opening of the new sprawling Terminal-3 at the Cochin airport.
“The boost in IT sector can augment the traffic from Cochin airport to the West, especially in business class and the new rule can prompt airline companies to think in terms of starting direct flights to Europe and US from Kochi. Even Air India may think in such terms. Techies are keen on having the laptops and iPad in the hand baggage as they can work during the long flying time. They are apprehensive of the condition of the laptops in the check-in luggage which is handled roughly. However, a discouraging factor would be that it will take a little longer to reach US airports via Europe from Kochi than via the Middle East,” said the official.