Kannur International Airport opens in Kerala! 10 facts
Kannur International Airport opens! In a big cheer for the people of Kerala, the state got its fourth airport today – the Kannur International Airport. Now, it has become more convenient to fly to UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait from Kerala!
The new Kannur International Airport, serving the town of Kannur, the northern district in the state of Kerala inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu.
To add to the good news, from February 2019, the Kannur airport will be connected to Delhi-NCR’s Hindon airport via the UDAN scheme. Here are 10 interesting things to know about the newly-built airport in Kerala that you wouldn’t want to miss!
1. The newly built Kannur International Airport is spread over 2,330 acres of land and is expected to serve more than one million passengers annually to begin with, with the number expected to increase five-fold by 2025, by conservative estimates.
2. The airport is located 30 km from the main town of Kannur and 3 km from Mattanur town of Kerala, which also happens to be the closest urban settlement to the airport.
3. It is the second greenfield airport to be built under public-private partnership (PPP) model in Kerala after Kochin International Airport. It received an LEED gold rating for energy and environment conservation, and has a solar power system.
4. Kannur International Airport is owned and operated by Kannur International Airport Limited (KIAL), a public–private consortium. It is the fourth airport of Kerala, after Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.
5. The integrated 95,000 sq m terminal building, which is the eighth largest in India, has been built with state-of-the-art facilities.
6. According to an IE report, the greenfield airport (one built from scratch on the new undeveloped site) will have a 4,000 m runway. It will be the fourth-longest runway in the country, just behind New Delhi (4,430 m), Hyderabad (4,260 m) and Bengaluru (4,120 m).
7. The domestic destinations from the airport will include Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, Hubballi, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Solapur and Hindon (Ghaziabad).
8. In fact, according to a Malayalam Manorama news report, flying to Kannur from Hindon will be as affordable as Rs 3,119!
9. Interestingly, the northernmost Kasaragod and Kannur districts account for thousands of Malayalis working in countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain. For these people, a trip back home would be easier. A large emigrant Malayali population work in the Gulf countries.
10. The Kannur International Airport, which has come up on a 2000 acres of mostly hilly terrain, is the culmination of government and bureaucratic efforts stretching back to the mid-90s.
