The Hindu Business Line : Coimbatore awaits global link from Silk Air, AI Express

Coimbatore March 21 Singapore Airlines' Silk Air and Air India Express are seen as the two potential airlines that may turn towards extending a service link to Coimbatore in the near future.

The possibility of Air India Express running a service via Coimbatore this winter is greater, according to sources in the aviation industry here.

Though Silk Air's entry into the Coimbatore sector has been widely talked about in the local aviation circuit for some time now, there has been no final word yet from the foreign regional airliner. . Silk Air, which is currently operating up to Kochi, is expected to extend its international service up to Coimbatore.

At present, Indian's Chennai-Sharjah flight operates via Coimbatore and Kochi and is the lone international flight to operate through Coimbatore. There has been demand from the travel and tour industry for direct international connectivity to Coimbatore on the plea that at least 70-80 international passengers originate daily from this region, which includes the far-flung business centres of Karur and Salem, apart from Palakkadu/Trichur towns from neighbouring Kerala.

Such volume could form the basis for starting a regular international air service out of Coimbatore, but this traffic, being widely dispersed, may not uniformly generate on all the days, feels Mr Tony, head of the city-based Aloha Travels.

According to him, the present volume would not justify starting a direct flight from Coimbatore to any foreign destination, and a link service, say twice/thrice-a-week, extended from Kochi could be viable.

The foreign travellers from Coimbatore, according to travel agencies here, at present prefer transhipment via Chennai, Bangalore or Kochi international airports using the improved air connectivity at Coimbatore provided by the budget airlines.

The passengers benefiting from the lower air fare for the sector travel, could also profitably spend the extra time and the surplus money accrued to them before emplaning from the metro airports on their outbound travels.

The potential for generating a decent volume of air passenger is one of the factors that encouraged the civil aviation authorities to go for revamping the Peelamedu civil airport.

The phase-2 runway expansion — from the existing 8,500 ft to 9,700 ft — being undertaken at the airport is expected to be through by this year-end, officials from Airports Authority of India said. The runway expansion will enable the airport to handle bigger/wider aircraft.

Even as the runway expansion is on, the aviation sector and travel agencies here are in a fix in terms of assessing the volume of new air passengers, which should justify future investment on airport infrastructure.

Their scepticism is partly due to the rather slow pace seen in the shaping up of the promised IT industry in Coimbatore. Barring one or two engineering industry, there has also been no visible major investments happening in industrial/tourism sectors in this region that would pep volume of flyers, feel aviation industry sources.