The Cochin International Airport is going to have the runway re-carpeted from the 20th of November 2019 to 31st March 2020. On this account the airport will not have any flight schedule operational from 10 AM to 6 PM, and the Airport has insisted all the operational airlines to reschedule the flight schedules. On this account, the flights would be mostly operational during evening and early morning.
As per the guidelines of Directorate General of Civil Aviation - Govt of India. Any Airport in India will have to under go a runway re-carpeting every ten years. The Cochin International Airport was started in 1999 and a similar re-carpeting work was conducted in 2009 as well. This would partially affect the tourism sector for the domestic market, however the foreign tourist movement might not be affected as most inbound flights land in CIAL early in the morning or mid night, except for a few exceptions.
The flight schedule to the Lakshadweep Islands is presumed to be affected, with Air India having just one schedule to Agatti Aerodrome. The take off is at 0845 hour, however while returning the flight lands at 1125 hours. Since the Aerodrome in Agatti is considered not be have operations during night, there might be some solution coming out from Air India.At the moment CIAL handles 240 flight schedules of these 35 schedules will have to be rescheduled.
There has been numerous rumours being spread that the airport would be closed. This has brought up a lot of confusion among travellers to Kochi and Kerala. It is not a closure of the airport, it is just the rescheduling of the flights because of the maintenance works happening at the Cochin International Airport. For more information about the rescheduling of the flight either contact your airline or visit the website of Cochin Airport