Services were discontinued from August 14 after the airport was shut due to flooding.

MUMBAI: With the Cochin international airport set to resume operations today, private carriers like Jet Airways and Indigo on Tuesday announced they will restart their services.

The airport, the seventh busiest in the country, had been rendered non-functional since August 14 after the deluge that devastated the state between August 8 and 22. The floods had forced government to allow commercial flights from the Naval facility in the heart of the city.

The airport authorities had first announced halting of operations till August 18, which was then extended to 26 and further to 29 as water levels continued to rise, inundating the runway, the terminals as well as the large solar farm surrounding the airport.

This forced the DGCA to ask airlines to divert Kochi bound flights to the other two airports in the state in Thiruvanathapuram and Kozhikode or Coimbatore in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Mangalore in Karnataka.

"Jet Airways will resume its scheduled operations to Cochin International Airport (CIAL) from August 29. The airline's first flight to Kochi (9W 0403 from Mumbai) is scheduled to arrive at 15:50 hrs," Jet Airways said in a statement.

Jet also said it continues relief efforts in support of the flood-affected people in the state, adding that the carrier airlifted over 17 tonnes of relief material free of cost.

The airline has also extended its waiver for passengers holding confirmed tickets and travelling into and out of the airport till today and guest can change dates up to September 15 from the original travel date, it added.

Budget carrier Indigo also said it will resume services from 1400 hrs today from Kochi.

Yesterday, the CIAL had said "the airport will commence full-scale operations (both international and domestic) at 2pm on August 29."

It is estimated that the CIAL suffered losses worth at least Rs 220 crore due to the fortnight-long closure of operations.

