Mangaluru: Though Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) authorities have been denying having experienced any revenue loss due to the operation of Kannur International Airport (KIA), the statistics show that there is a negative impact on the MIA after Kannur airport started functioning.
Kannur airport, which is located just 150 km away from Mangaluru started its operation from December 2018. The statistics show that KIA has been taking away passengers after it started functioning. As per the statistics, the number of international flights dropped by 25.3 percent and international passengers decreased by 18 percent compared to January 2018. In January 2018, a total of 446 international flights operated from Mangaluru, but this year, the number of international flights which have landed at the MIA is 333. The airport saw a total of 54,540 international passengers in January 2019 as against 67,194 passengers in January 2018.
Though authorities had expected to raise domestic passenger footfall, it has taken a hit after KIA started functioning. As per the statistics, 1.4 lakh domestic passengers were handled during the month of January, 2018. But only 1.2 lakh domestic passengers were handled this January.
The drop in traffic both flights and passengers coincided with the opening of Kannur airport. In November 2018, the flight movement and international passengers were positive. In 2018, international passengers saw a surge of 7.8 percent and flight movement was up by 4.1 percent. However, there was negative growth in domestic passenger footfall which saw a dip of 11.4 percent.
According to the sources, the reason for this is cheaper flight fare in Kannur airport when compared to Mangaluru airport.
However, the MIA has not admited that Kannur airport is impacting the passengers of Mangaluru airport. It says that cancellation of several international and domestic flights from September 2018 was the reason for negative growth.
