Kannur International Airport opens in Kerala: Interesting features
Kerala has become the first state in the country to have four international airports with the inauguration of the Kannur airport on Sunday.
Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan jointly flagged off the inaugural Air India Express flight, carrying 186 passengers to Abu Dhabi, at the airport near Mattannur town in the morning.
With the commissioning of the airport, the state has become the first in the country to have four international airports, with Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode being the other three.
Image Credit: twitter.com/sureshpprabhu/
The airport depicts not only cultural traditions of Malabar and Kannur, but also of Kodagu in neighbouring Karnataka. Virajpet in Kodagu is just only 58-km away from the airport, while district headquarters Madikeri is around 90-km away.
Mural paintings depicting the heritage of Malabar and Indian dance forms, including Theyyam of north Kerala, Kathakali and Yakshagana, the traditional theatre art form of Karnataka, are among the art works that vie for attention at the airport.
Image Credit: twitter.com/sureshpprabhu/
The new airport is spread over 2,330 acres of land with a runway length of 3,050 meters, and is expected to serve more than one million passengers annually to begin with.
Image Credit: twitter.com/sureshpprabhu/
The Kerala government owns 32.86 per stake in KIAL, while 22.54 per cent stake is held by state and Central Public Sector Undertakings.
Another 35.21 per cent holding rests with others, including qualified institutional buyers (QIBs), individuals, companies, while the remaining 9.39 per cent stake is with the Airports Authority of India.
Image Credit: twitter.com/sureshpprabhu/
The airport is located 30 km from the main town of Kannur and 3 km from Mattanur town of Kerala, which also happens to be the closest urban settlement to the airport.
The Kannur airport, built on a public-private partnership (PPP) mode, will become a new benchmark of how airports will be constructed in the country.
Image Credit: twitter.com/sureshpprabhu/
The integrated 95,000 sq m terminal building, which is the eighth largest in India, has been built with state-of-the-art facilities.
The airport will have 24 check-in counters initially, which can be increased to 48 as per requirement, six aero bridges, which can also be increased in future, it said adding the length of the runway is being extended to 4,000 metres.
It received an LEED gold rating for energy and environment conservation, and has a solar power system.
The airport will help the non-resident Keralites (NRKs), especially in the Gulf region, besides boosting tourism and exports, which will result in several job opportunities.
