Flight connectivity from Mysuru is set to further improve with additional flights planned for Chennai besides pushing for regular flights to Tirupati for which there is a great demand.
This was stated by the Mysuru Airport Director R. Manjunath in an address to the members of the Institution of Engineers, Mysuru centre, here on Wednesday.
Mr. Manjunath said a team from Indigo was in the city early in the day and held extensive discussions about the potential and the places to which there was a demand for flights. While an additional flight to Chennai is almost imminent, the flight operators have also been impressed upon the demand for Tirupati and Shirdi.
Explaining the current status of the Mysuru airport and the proposed expansion, Mr. Manjunath said that the State Government had already released ₹320 crore towards land acquisition and the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Authority (KIADB) was already processing it.
Once the acquisition process was completed and 240 acres of land was transferred to AAI, then the runway would be extended from the existing 1,740 metres to 2,750 metres besides being widened from 30 metres to 45 metres to facilitate the operation of larger planes such as A320 and Boeing 737, Mr. Manjunath said.
He said going forward the AAI was looking at connectivity to Kalaburagi, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangaluru besides Mumbai and Delhi. In addition, the business community was keen on flights to Ahmedabad but all this is subsequent to airport and runway expansion which could take anywhere upto 18 months to two years once the land acquisition was completed and transferred.
In terms of passenger traffic originating from Mysuru, he said that it was close to reaching the pre-COVID levels and the occupancy rates were nearing 90 per cent in all the flights. At present Mysuru is connected to Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Goa, Chennai, Kochi and Hubballi and there was a proposal to link Agatti in Lakshadweep islands as a tourist destination, with Mysuru.
Dwelling on the future prospects and the benefits of the airport expansion to the local economy, Mr. Manjunath said that the software industry which was establishing campuses in Mysuru, would expedite the process while investment in hardware and other sectors would receive a boost. The airport was geographically well situated to cater to the industrial expansion around Mysuru, according to Mr. Manjunath who pointed out that the presence of the airport would give traction to the proposed ₹22,900 crore semi-conductor project coming up in the city.
B.S.Prabhakar, Chairman, IEI, M ysuru, N.Suresh, Director, Fire Safety and Research Foundation, and others were present.
