Santhosh VLR
Cochin International Airport 25 Year | Nedumbassery Airport | CIAL | Cochin International Airport
Kochi: With the election model code in place, the Cochin International Airport Ltd (Cial) will mark its 25th anniversary without much fanfare today. It was on May 25, 1999, the then President of India K R Narayanan dedicated the airport to the nation.
The first flight operated to Dammam (then Dhahran) in Saudi Arabia on June 10. That year, Cial operated 6,473 flights and served 4.96 lakh passengers.Cial now handles 70,203 aircraft and 105.29 lakh passengers. The then CM K Karunakaran was Cial’s founder chairman and V J Kurian founder MD. tnn
In fiscal year 2023–2024, the airport handled more than 10.3 million passengers with a total of 67,469 aircraft movements. As of 2024, the airport is served by over 25 airline companies, carrying passengers to 31 international destinations and 22 domestic destinations.
The airport operates three passenger terminals and one cargo terminal with a total area of over 225,000 square metres (2,421,880 sq ft). In 2015, the airport became the world's first fully solar-powered airport with the inauguration of a dedicated solar plant.[8][9] For this entrepreneurial vision, the airport won the coveted Champion of the Earth award in 2018, the highest environmental honour instituted by the United Nations. The airport was awarded The Best Airport in Asia-Pacific in 2020 (5 to 15 million passengers per year) by Airports Council International.
History
Kochi's airport began as an airstrip on Willingdon Island, built in 1936 by the Kingdom of Cochin, intended for transporting officials involved in the development of the Cochin Port. The Kingdom of Cochin allowed the British, who ruled India at the time, to convert the airstrip into a military airport for use by the Indian Navy during World War II. The Royal Navy chose it as a strategic site for their headquarters in Southern India and as an air station cum landing craft and seaplane base. The military facility hosted naval fighter planes and was intended to thwart possible Japanese air raids. A small naval unit set up operations just two days before the outbreak of World War II.
After India achieved dominion status and the merger of the Kingdom of Cochin with India, the Indian Navy operated the airport, though it permitted civilian aircraft to use the facility. The Gulf economic boom of the 1980s made it necessary to develop international connections to Kochi in the interests of expatriates working in the Middle East.
