Air India express yet to give priority to Trichy

 Traders involved in export businesses have expressed surprise as to why Trichy is neglected time and again by the national carrier, the Air India Express. Around 20 years ago, the erstwhile Indian Airlines operated a daily service from Trichy to Colombo and now when there is tremendous growth potential in the region, the Air India Express does not give connectivity to Colombo at all, whereas Sri Lankan Airlines and Mihin Lanka together operate 18 services a week to Colombo.

An Air India Express source in Trichy said the national carrier connects three airports - Thiruvanathapuram, Cochin and Kozhikode - from neighbouring Kerala to the Gulf daily, but it cancelled the only flight to Abu Dhabi from Trichy in October last year. In November, 2011, the Air India Express had cancelled nine flights to Kuala Lumpur and Chennai due to crew constraints and inevitable reasons. At present, the Air India Express does not operate to Abu Dabhi from Trichy, a route that was patronized by the frequent-flying workers in the oil fields. The source also conveyed to TOI that the Trichy airport director had recently written to the Air India Express commercial director about the immediate need to operate daily services to other destinations such as Muscat, Dammam, Jeddah, Riyadh, Sharjah, Bahrain, Doha and Kuwait since growth potential from this region was immense. The only two international routes the national carrier operates from Trichy are Singapore and Dubai.

Ironically, the neglect becomes complete after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh according the status of International Airport to Trichy and inauguration of the automation system of Air Traffic Services (ATS) at the Trichy airport in May last year. The airline does not fly to Kuala Lumpur after it gave space to AirAsia as it has permanently given space to SriLankan Airlines to operate the Trichy-Colombo sector. Moreover, no one operates domestic services to cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kochi, Coimbatore or even Thiruvananthapuram.

Apart from Sri Lankan Airlines, other private airlines are doing brisk business in the absence of Air India Express. For instance, Jet Airways launched its third daily services to Chennai from Trichy from this Sunday, (March 31) and seeing the growth potential in the Trichy region, airlines such as Silk Air, Air Arabia and Emirates are all set to launch their services to Trichy sooner than later, the source pointed out.