 "Kerala floods: With airport shut, Alliance Air looks to use Kochi Navy base")
Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, will operate a 'proving flight' to Kochi's naval base on Saturday to study the safety aspects of operating ATR-type aircraft from there, a spokesperson of the national carrier said.
Air India is trying to find a way to fly in and out of Kochi where the airport has been closed down till August 26 leaving thousands of passengers stranded, the spokesperson said.
Incessant rains in the state have left the airport runway flooded. Kerala is facing the worst rain fury and deluge in a century with 13 of the state's 14 districts under a red alert for the fifth day on Saturday.
The 'proving flight' will have a team of officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and other flight safety officials, the spokesperson said.
"If found safe, Alliance Air plans to mount (operate) more flights to Kochi's defence airbase and also pave the way for other airlines with ATR/turboprops (to operate flights from there)," he said.
ATRs are usually 70-seater smaller aircraft that can land even in shorter runway span.
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Air India and its low-cost arm Air India Express had on Friday said their flights scheduled to depart from the Kochi airport will operate from Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode till the Kochi airport is made functional.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in Kerala, on Saturday made an aerial assessment of the damage caused by floods.
According to the information received from the control room of the State Disaster Management, 194 people have lost their lives and 36 are missing due to rains and landslides since August 8. Over 314,000 people have been moved to relief camps.