Mangaluru: Commercial international flights to resume from March 27 at MIA

Mangaluru: The director-general of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has permitted scheduled commercial international flights from March 27.

Mangaluru International Airport is gearing up to be part of this traveling excitement and is set for a sharp increase in daily movements, adding newer destinations.

As things stand, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Air India and GoFirst airlines are operating flights from Mangaluru to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Coimbatore. IndiGo has the lion’s share of weekly aircraft movements at 57 connecting Mangaluru to Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. SpiceJet has 8 movements – 4 each to Bengaluru and Hyderabad, Air India 7 movements to Coimbatore and GoFirst 6 to Mumbai.

As per the tentative summer schedule filed by the airlines, weekly movements of IndiGo will go up to 77 to above mentioned four destinations; SpiceJet will go up to 14 – all to Bengaluru; Air India will remain at seven – all direct to Mumbai rather than via Coimbatore as the airline operates now and GoFirst will jump to 14 – all to Mumbai. Cumulatively, the weekly aircraft movements will leapfrog to 112 from existing 78.

In addition, IndiGo has also proposed a new route to Pune with 5 movements each week. SpiceJet will meet a long-standing expectation of people of coastal Karnataka with a daily flight to the national capital Delhi. Air India will now connect directly to Mumbai, the commercial capital of India with daily flights rather than via Coimbatore. The enhanced connectivity will give greater fillip to economic prosperity of the region.

The additional flights will add to passenger footfall for the coastal city regarded as the Gateway to Karnataka. The airport handled 1,0,3273 passengers in February. This included 74, 862 domestic passengers through 903 aircraft movements including 630 domestic, 227 international and rest general aviation. This number has consistently been on the rise since October 2021 and is expected to go up further with the summer schedule.