Most people arriving in Kannur now arrive at Mattannur, about 28 km east of the city, at an airport that opened on 9 December 2018 and is the newest in Kerala. It is worth ten minutes of your planning time, partly because the drive is longer than you expect, and partly because the oddity in its name explains why your flight options look the way they do.
The facts a traveller needs
Kannur International Airport (CNN)
| Opened | 9 December 2018 |
| Where | Mattannur — about 28 km east of Kannur city by the airport’s own figure, 26 km by the district’s; about 24 km east of Thalassery |
| Owner | Kannur International Airport Limited: Kerala government 32.86%, state and central public undertakings 22.54%, Airports Authority of India 9.39%, others 35.21% |
| Runway | 3,050 m, with phased extension to 3,400 m and then 4,000 m planned |
| Terminal | about 97,000 sq m, built to handle 2,000 passengers in a peak hour |
| Flying today | Air India Express and IndiGo — Gulf routes including Dubai and Doha, and Indian cities including Chennai and Navi Mumbai |
| Nearest railheads | Thalassery about 25 km, Kannur about 27 km |
| Getting out | prepaid taxis and KSRTC buses; app cabs are unreliable here |
Allow an hour from the terminal to a hotel in Kannur city, more in the evening. If you are heading for Wayanad or Coorg rather than the coast, Mattannur is on the right side of the district for you and the drive is genuinely convenient — which is a large part of why the airport was put where it was.
The permission it does not have
An Indian airport can be built to international standard, be named International, clear international passengers — and still not be a place a foreign airline may fly to. That last permission is called “point of call” status, and it is granted by the union government under the bilateral air services agreements it signs with other countries. Without it, a Gulf carrier cannot run a scheduled service to Kannur no matter how many passengers want one.
Kerala has asked repeatedly. The Chief Minister has raised it with the Prime Minister and with the civil aviation minister, and a parliamentary standing committee recommended granting it. The union government’s position has been that non-metro airports are being kept out of the bilateral schedule for now, and the status has not been granted. Foreign airlines have expressed interest; they cannot act on it.
This is not an abstraction in Kannur. North Malabar is one of the most Gulf-connected regions in India, and the traffic this airport was built for is the traffic that flies to Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Jeddah every week. It can do so only on Indian carriers. Anyone who wants a Gulf airline drives to Kozhikode or Mangaluru, or flies out of Kochi.
The money, plainly
The airport loses money and has done since it opened. Its accumulated losses were reported at about ₹742.77 crore, and in 2023–24 it took about ₹99 crore of revenue against about ₹275 crore of costs — a loss of roughly ₹169 crore in one year. The pandemic arrived fifteen months after the opening and took out the traffic the business case depended on.
The direction has turned, though. It reached its first million passengers within nine months of opening and two million cumulative by November 2020; it handled about 1.34 million in 2024–25 and about 1.5 million in calendar 2025, its best year yet. A terminal built for far more is at least filling up.
And the airline that was going to be based here
You will find reports that Air Kerala, a new regional airline, would base itself at Kannur from June 2025 and fly ATR turboprops to Mysuru, Mangaluru, Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai and Hyderabad. Checking the airport’s own site in August 2026, the carriers shown operating are Air India Express and IndiGo. Treat Air Kerala as an announcement rather than a service, and do not build a connection around it until you can buy the ticket.
- Compare Kannur (CNN) against Kozhikode (CCJ) and Mangaluru (IXE) — for the northern half of the district Mangaluru is often no further, and it has more carriers.
- From the terminal, use the prepaid taxi counter rather than negotiating outside. Budget about an hour into the city.
- Coming from the Gulf, you are choosing between Air India Express and IndiGo here; the wider choice is at Kozhikode and Kochi.
- If Wayanad or Coorg is on the trip, fly into Kannur and drive east — you save the long haul from Karipur.
- Trains remain the easy way along the coast. Kannur station is in the middle of town; the airport is not.
None of this makes Kannur a bad arrival. It is a modern, uncrowded terminal with short queues, which counts for something at the end of a night flight. But an airport is a political object as much as a piece of concrete, and this one is a good demonstration of it: everything is built, and the thing it is waiting for is a signature.