RIYADH, 4 June — A large number of Indian workers here have called on Air-India to start direct flights from Riyadh to Calicut airport in the southern state of Kerala. They have also sent a memorandum to civil aviation authorities in India urging them to open up Calicut, Cochin and Trivandrum airports for foreign airlines keeping in view the growing passenger loads in the south Indian sector.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday night, C.A. Ali Koya, general secretary of the Riyadh branch of the Muslim Education Society, said his organization had presented a memorandum to Captain P.P. Singh, Air-India’s regional director, urging him to make immediate arrangements for starting direct flights from Riyadh to Calicut. M.A. Kassim, MES president, and Muhammad Ali Poonur were also present.
Koya said copies of the petition had been sent to the Indian ambassador, the chief minister of Kerala, the Air-India chairman, and many senior officials as well as parliamentarians representing the state. He thanked Singh for making an interim arrangement for passengers bound for Calicut to travel via Jeddah on a direct flight. Air-India will bear the cost of tickets for the Riyadh-Jeddah sector.
Air-India last month launched direct flights from Jeddah to Calicut and Hyderabad, and re-introduced a direct flight from Dammam to Trivandrum. “It is ironic that the Indian national carrier has ignored the Riyadh-Calicut sector despite the fact that the Riyadh region has the largest concentration of Indian workers from the area,” he said.
Koya noted that the total number of Indian workers in Riyadh exceeds 800,000.
Elaborating on difficulties faced by passengers from Riyadh in the absence of direct flights, Poonur and Koya said they often had to spend two full days to reach Kerala instead of five hours on a direct flight. They suggested that Air-India could take airplanes on lease to operate the Riyadh-Calicut route as this sector could prove to be one of the largest revenue earners for the airline.
They further said that the airports of Calicut, Cochin and Trivandrum had all infrastructure facilities to operate international flights.
“Our national carrier should add new destinations especially to south India, which boasts of great tourism potential,” they said, while noting that wide-bodied airplanes can now land at Calicut airport.
