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Kannur Airport reeling under heavy losses
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SME Times NewsBureau | 20 May, 2022
Kerala's fourth and the biggest of all airports -- the Kannur
International Airport Limited ( KIAL) -- is reeling under heavy losses.
After four years since opening, the losses have now crossed Rs 300 crore, sources said.
It
was inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in 2018 and has
turned out to be a big relief for all political leaders hailing from
Kannur, including Vijayan and numerous others, who had to earlier take a
flight to the state capital from the neighbouring Kozhikode district.
One
reason why KIAL is lying in the red is because just as the airport was
getting traffic, the Covid pandemic hit and since then it has been
struggling despite the best efforts of getting more airlines to operate
domestic and international flights from there.
Registered under
the Companies Act, KIAL is a government company with the Kerala
government holding the maximum shares, accounting for 39 per cent,
followed by the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited with 16.20 per cent
and billionaire Keralite businessman M.A. Yusuf Ali, who owns close to 9
per cent shares.
While sitting in the opposition, the CPI-M had
gone hammer and tong against the then Oommen Chandy-led government
(2011-16) for not doing anything to increase the runway of the airport
to 4,000 metres as a further close to 240 acres of land had to be
acquired. But though the Vijayan-led government has now completed six
years in office, it has also not been able to increase the runway to
4,000 metres.
Though KIAL is running under losses, it can take
heart from the fact that the country's first airport built under the PPP
model -- the Cochin International Airport Limited -- was opened in
1999, but it started paying dividends only from 2003-04. And by now the
total dividend payout has crossed 282 per cent.
Authorities
expect that things will change if more and more domestic and
international flights begin operations from the the Kannur International
Airport.
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