Pandemic impact more severe on Kerala airports

Though the pandemic has brought all the operational airports in the country to their knees, the impact was more severe in Kerala which boasts the highest number of international airports in the country, at four. According to the traffic data compiled with Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Cochin International Airport which handles the highest number of passengers in Kerala could handle only 24.58 lakh during the first year of the pandemic against the record 1.02 crore before the pandemic, a drop by more than 75%.

CIAL was the seventh largest airport in the country in terms of international and domestic passenger handling before the pandemic, while it slipped to tenth position during 2020-21. So is the case with Thiruvananthapuram, Calicut and Kannur international airports which slipped to 24th, 25th, and 38th positions, respectively, during this period. While the airports in Kerala lost around three fourth of their passengers, other airports together in the country lost only two thirds in 2020-21.

As per the figures worked out by the MoCA, around 199.69 million passenger used the airports in the country in 2021-22, which is less than 60% of the figure of 2018-19, the year which saw the highest air passenger volume in the country.

A senior officer attached to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) told The Hindu that Kerala had been handling more international than domestic passengers over the years. This was a prime reason for the poor performance of airports in Kerala during the peak of pandemic as international traffic was highly restricted.

In the case of most airports outside the State, domestic passengers often outnumber international ones. After the initial lockdown, domestic air traffic was allowed in the country adhering to COVID-19 protocol. This is the main reason for the Kerala airports falling behind in the ranking of airports in terms of total passenger handling during the pandemic period, he said.