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Cochin International Airport Ltd has achieved a major milestone in its 19-year long history by handling 10-million passengers in a single financial year.
As a gesture of gratitude, CIAL Managing Director VJ Kurien gifted a one sovereign gold coin to the 10-millionth passenger who arrived from Chennai by a IndiGo flight at 12.20 pm on Wednesday.
In FY2016-17, CIAL handled 8.94 million passengers and witnessed a steady increase in traffic this year, with a total passenger volume of more than 10 million. It registered a 22 per cent increase in domestic passenger volume, touching 4.84 million compared to that of 3.94 million in FY 2016-17. The international sector also witnessed an increase of 4 per cent with 5.16 million passengers compared to 4.98 million in FY 2016-17.
The total aircraft movement has increased by 13 per cent from 62,827 during last fiscal to 68,898 in this financial year. CIAL also maintained the status quo of being the fourth biggest airport in the country in terms of international traffic and seventh in terms of total traffic.
It pointed out that India has been witnessing an extraordinary growth in domestic aviation sector and a growth of 100 million passengers was registered last year, thereby becoming the third-largest in the world in terms of domestic passengers.
Kurian told reporters that “CIAL is well prepared to encompass this growth. The growth of domestic aviation is phenomenal so that the airport operators have to double their capacity every four years”.
There are 480 aircraft operating today for the airlines companies in India and orders have already been placed with manufacturers for another 1,080 planes, which are expected to arrive in the next 10 years. The capacity enhancement of the airports should be of utmost importance, he said, adding that CIAL is also gearing up for this.
“We are renovating the existing Terminal-1 for domestic operations, which will have 6 lakh square feet built-up area and will feature modern amenities. This will be added up to the existing 16 lakh square feet of terminal space. We expect the renovated terminal to become operational in May,” he added.
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