Mysuru:  The Mysuru-Kochi flight service offered by Alliance Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India, has been suspended from Nov. 20 till March 2020 due to runway re-carpeting work at the Cochin International Airport.

There will be no daytime flight service for four months due to runway re-carpeting works at Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL). CIAL has instructed all the operating airlines to re-schedule their daytime flight services for four months from Nov. 20, 2019 to March 28, 2020.

As per norms, all airports should re-carpet their runways once in 10 years. The commercial operations at Cochin Airport started in 1999 and the runway underwent its first re-carpeting of the 3,400-metre long and 60-metre wide runway in 2009. 

The entire re-carpeting work, which includes re-tarring, maintenance and overhauling of the entire stretch of the runway as well as the taxi-way, will cost Rs. 151 crore. Re-carpeting will considerably improve the operational efficiency and aerodrome safety, especially during low visibility and adverse weather conditions. 

Speaking to Star of Mysore this morning, Mysore Airport Director R. Manjunath said that the suspension of Kochi service will be in place till the work at Cochin Airport is completed. 

The Kochi flight was operated from Mysuru on all seven days. On Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the flight used to take off from Kochi at 10.25 am and arrive in Mysuru at 11.45 am. On Tuesdays, the flight used to leave Kochi at 12.10 pm and land in Mysuru at 1.40 pm. The flight was quite popular and the regular occupancy rate was recorded at 75 to 80 percent. 

Manjunath said that instead of Kochi, the Air Alliance was looking at the possibility of operating flights to the newly-inaugurated Kalaburagi Airport or Mysuru-Bengaluru-Kolhapur sector. “The Airlines is looking into the possibility to help businessmen travelling to Bengaluru, Belagavi and Uttara Kannada to places Ankola, Tirupati and Belagavi,” he said. The new route would be known either by this weekend or early next week, he added. 

Manjunath said that there is less possibility of any airlines operating flights to spiritual destination of Shirdi. “Many regular flights to Shirdi from Bengaluru get cancelled due to inclement weather and in such case, it is a distance possibility that any operator will agree to operate from Mysuru to Shirdi,” he rued.