Tour operators and hoteliers are peeved with an advertisement issued by the ministry of civil aviation, which doesn't indicate the presence of Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode airports on the aviation map. The ad, the ministry's share of the pre-election PR drive of the UPA government, mentions only the Cochin International Airport.

The ad, which depicts the five-year growth of the sunrise sector through a comparison chart of major international air routes, claims that even the "smallest cities are connected to the world". Srinagar, Amritsar, Lucknow, Gaya, Guwahati, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur, Goa, Hyderabad, Mangalore, Bengaluru and Trichy join the original connectivity points of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi on the map.

A press release by the Confederation of Tourism Industry in Kerala, Trivandrum Chamber of Commerce and South Kerala Hotel Federation reads: "Unfortunately, the air connectivity map given in the ad has left out the leading airports like Trivandrum and Calicut in Kerala.

"The Trivandrum airport is the fifth declared international airport in India handling about 130 flights into and out of Trivandrum. Similarly, the Calicut international airport is a key airport that handles the traffic to the Gulf countries. It is a vital infrastructure for the development of the Malabar region."

The trade bodies have demanded an apology from aviation minister Praful Patel for discriminating against the two airports in Kerala and urged for action against the officials who released the ad in major newspapers on Monday.

 Don Sebastian/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication