Kannur International PPP airport becoming a reality ..

Kannur International airport, another great success in
commercial aviation history like CIAL being repeated ?

It was a pleasant surprise to have the first plane, a Dornier land at Kannur's new 3 km long runway at the new international airport being constructed in 2200 acres of land near Mattannur, 25 kms from Kannur town,  this morning. The flight was from Bangalore.

See the video of the first landing here ..

 Kannur airport presently is expecting to handle about 1.5 million international and 0.6 million domestic passengers annually, improving access to air travel for people from the northern parts of Kerala.

When the runway gets extended to four kms, it will be one among the four airports from the country having such a long runway making it a hub airport. 

Oommen Chandy, CM of Kerala,
man with a mission !!

Hub airports are used by airline as as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination. It is part of a hub and spoke model, as opposed to the Point to Point model. Presently only New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore are hub airports in the country. 

It is hoped that over the years annual exports worth Rs 300 crore of handloom materials, Rs 400 crore of agricultural produce and Rs 300 cr. of small sale goods will be exported through this international airport to international destinations

Another event of great importance is that on the lines of Kochi international airport, a 1 MW solar plant is also established in the airport at a cost of Rs 5 crore.

When the West is fumbling to get even one of their international airports go energy-neutral and run on solar energy, (Jacksonville Atlanta US is a 95 million annual passenger traffic airport and the largest in the world) India is proudly marching with this second international airport in Kannur in Kerala after the first one in Kochi, Kerala ( at 7 million annual passengers). To start with Kannur international airport will have a 1 MW solar plant, which over time will be extended to meet the complete energy requirements of the airport in future.

The state holds 35 per cent stake in the airport while public sector entities hold a stake of 25 percent, Airport authority 10 percent and private the rest 30 percent.


Given the propensity of Malayalees or Keralites to work abroad, Kerala being a money order economy presently, this fourth international airport in Kerala is definitely bound to be another success like Kochi international airport. 

Full credit goes to the Chairman of the airport, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who is on a spree to change the face of Kerala from an industry-hostile economy to an industry-friendly economy in just five years. In the coming elections if he is re-elected as CM for another five years, I am sure Kerala would be transformed to from the present status of New York state in US (on economic, social and health indicators), to much better level in economic. social and health indicators.