The new terminal has a capacity of handling 20 million passengers per annum. But the Ministry is not too keen on renegotiating bilateral traffic rights in a hurry as the frequencies are currently loaded heavily in favour of foreign carriers.

“Domestic airlines don’t utilise even 50 per cent of the rights. On certain routes like China and Malaysia, the utilization of bilateral rights by Indian carriers is six per cent and 12 per cent respectively. There are several rights unutilized in high traffic density routes like Dubai and Qatar as well. While Indian carriers utilize 62 per cent capacity on the Dubai route, those flying to Qatar have a low utilization of 28 per cent,” an airline industry official said. K N Shrivastava, Secretary, Civil Aviation assured that the issue of would not be a deterrent in increasing more overseas flights out of Kolkata. “Airlines that wish to fly to Kolkata will not face a problem. We are keen on having better connections out of Kolkata. Air India will also enhance operations,” he said.’

Xiaman Airlines of China is the country’s first private-owned airline and is bidding to connect Kolkata to Beijing. Malaysia Airlines has already operated in Kolkata earlier (between 2005 and 2006) , but withdrew services as part of its route restructuring programme.

Most foreign carriers operate in North, West and South India. Kolkata, the only major international airport in the East, has no flights yet to Europe or even the Far East. It might do Kolkata some good if these carriers start operating out of the new terminal.