The Trivandrum International airport one of the oldest of the airports of our country that have been being used for aviation, even before independence. The first flight from the airport dates back to the year 1935, when it was under the reign of The Royal family of Travancore. As far as the air traffic is concerned, it is a major airport, which has been ranked, 8th in terms of being the busiest in India, with regard to traffic of international passenger traffic and is ranked as 10th busiest when all the traffic is taken into consideration.
When some up-gradation was done in this airport, and it was endowed with the status of international airport, it became the first non-metro city to hold a degree as such. It is located 3.7 kilo meters away from the main Trivandrum city. As far as the size is concerned, it is much smaller than the other airport in the same state. The terminal building of three stories which covers some 32,000 sq feet of area, with an additional area for check in and arrival area, which is 950 and 570 sq feet respectively. At a time, the airport is equipped to handle around 1400 passengers in a much efficient way. Thus, the airport's annual capacity of passengers is around 1.33 million.
There are three terminals present at the airport where two of them are dedicated for domestic usage whiles the third one for international use. Roughly the two domestic terminals have the holding capacity of 500 passengers and in case of the third terminal, it increases to 1600. The holding areas are well maintained and are well outfitted with all basic amenities and lounges.
The connectivity of Trivandrum International Airport is limited to few main cities of India, such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru etc, while most of the international flights are concentrated in the Gulf countries, to Kuwait, Oman, Sharjah, etc and other regions of Middle East. Other than these, there are also flights to Singapore and Sri Lanka. Air India is the main franchise that operates here along with the other international air lines that run their services too. The airport hails the motto of being enviro-friendly and is planning to develop a miniature forest and 40 different varieties of plants in and around the campus.
