Early years The airport was inaugurated on 13 April 1988. In 1977, the airport was sanctioned due to long periods of struggle under the leadership of the late freedom fighter,
K. P. Kesava Menon. In the 1990s,
Gulf Malayalis played an important role in the development of the airport - they collected funds for the purpose when the Union Government claimed it did not have any. This led to the inception of the Malabar International Airport Development Society, which helped raise funds for the airport's development. Consequently, major developments of facilities, such as an extension of the runway from 6,000 feet to 9,000 feet to facilitate the operation of large aircraft, were carried out with loans from the
Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO). It received the status of an international airport on 2 February 2006, which led to more development in its infrastructure, for handling the operation of international flights from its terminal.
Wide-body aircraft restrictions Since 1 May 2015, the
Airports Authority of India (AAI) imposed restrictions on the operation of wide-body aircraft such as
Boeing 777 and
747 for a period of six months for runway recarpeting, which had been long overdue at this airport. As a result,
Emirates,
Saudia and two
Air India Boeing 747 flight operations had to move temporarily to
Cochin International Airport during this time. The airport authorities had expressed doubt about getting permission to operate wide-bodied aircraft from the airport, even after the completion of the recarpeting, for the runway in the airport is not large enough for the operation of jumbo aircraft. AAI had earlier instructed that all airports using widebody aircraft must have 240 m of
Runway End Safety Area (RESA) in each direction, whereas that of Calicut Airport must have 90 m. The airport director K Janardhanan said the short runway was a major hurdle in operating wide-bodied aircraft from the
tabletop runway and the runway length should be extended from the current 2,850 m to 3,150 m to operate wide-bodied aircraft, he added. The major hurdle in extending the runway is the delay in acquiring the land which requires a total of of land for extending the runway and associated facilities. The state government has been finding the task difficult, for it requires relocation of 1,500 families living around the airport. As of 10 June 2016, not much action has been taken for land acquisition to help increase the runway length. The AAI decided to get a runway safety area to avoid the aircraft overrunning the end of the table-top runway. On 7 August 2020, wide-body aircraft have been banned from flying to CCJ after the crash of
IX 1344, which overran the table-top runway. As of November 2020, the airport does not have the recommended
Runway safety area or
Engineered Materials Arresting System installed. The land acquisition procedures for runway development are progressing as of July 2022. In the beginning,
Saudia has been given permission to start nonstop flights to
Jeddah and
Riyadh using
Boeing 777-200LR and
Airbus A330-300. It flew back to Jeddah on the same day at 13:19 (IST). On 5 July 2019,
Saudi Arabian Airlines flew with the
Boeing 777-300ER and
Airbus A330-300 to CCJ. DGCA gave approval for wide-body aircraft operations of
Air India from Calicut International Airport using
Boeing 747-400,
Boeing 777-200LR,
Boeing 777-300ER, and
Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
Emirates also secured approval from DGCA to operate Boeing 777-200LR and 777-300ER from Calicut. On 7 August 2020,
Air India Express Flight 1344, a
COVID-19 repatriation flight on the
Dubai-Kozhikode route, overran the tabletop runway upon landing in bad weather and crashed into the runway slope, killing 21 passengers. As a result, wide-body aircraft are no longer permitted to fly to Kozhikode Airport, and as of 7 July 2022, runway renovation is in progress. == Immigration ==