By Sameep Singh Gumtala, Published on April 12th, 2023 in News
As the summer 2023 schedule begins for airlines across India and rest of the world by March end, there is good news for the international and domestic travelers flying to and from the holy city of Amritsar, Punjab. The city is set to experience the busiest season after the pandemic, with new airlines and more international & domestic flights. The summer season in airline industry starts in the last week of March till end of October.
In a press communique, the Global Convener of FlyAmritsar Initiative, Sameep Singh Gumtala informed that Amritsar Airport is set to achieve new records this season, with over 11 Indian and foreign airlines operating up to 64 daily flights to and from the airport.
Gumtala said that the Punjabi diaspora across the globe will be able to travel non-stop to Amritsar from over 10 international destinations, including, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Rome, Milan Malpensa, Milan Bergamo, Dubai, Sharjah, Doha, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, on more than 112-weekly international services. These international flights are operated by 8 airlines that includes 4 Indian and 4 foreign air carriers.
Speaking about the enhanced connectivity with North America, Gumtala was pleased to share that, the Italian airline carrier, Neos would be launching an exclusive route between Amritsar and Toronto, Canada via Milan Malpensa airport in Italy, from April 6th, 2023. The airline will also provide Amritsar convenient connectivity with New York in USA via Milan.
While the airline will launch the Amritsar-Toronto via Milan route with once-weekly services, depending upon the response by the Punjabi diaspora, the airline could increase the frequency to up to 3-weekly in later months. He further added that the Initiative has reached out to the airline representatives to consider connecting Amritsar with Vancouver via Milan in near future.
Gumtala added that Air India Express will be adding 2 more weekly flights between Amritsar and Sharjah this summer. The airline, along with IndiGo will operate 12-weekly services to Sharjah. While both Air India Express and SpiceJet will also continue to operate 14-weekly services to Dubai as well.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) continues to be the highest serving market from Amritsar. In total, there will be 26-weekly departures to Dubai and Sharjah in UAE. Recently, even Dubai based one of the World’s biggest airline Emirates in a request to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation, asked for Amritsar and 2 other india airports to be included as a point of call (POC) in the bilateral air service agreements to be able to start flights. Currently, only the Indian carriers can operate flights to UAE.
Yogesh Kamra, Convener (India) for the FlyAmritsar Initiative, said that domestic travelers can now avail enhanced connectivity, with India’s regional carrier, Alliance air starting daily non-stop flights between Delhi – Amritsar. Air India is also adding one more additional daily flight, taking the total to 4-daily flights between Delhi and Amritsar. With the addition of these flights, 7 major Indian carriers will be operating over 324-weekly non-stop services to/from 11 domestic destinations, including, Delhi, Mumbai, Srinagar, Jaipur, Patna, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune, and Goa.
The patron of Amritsar based NGO Amritsar Vikas Manch, Manmohan Singh Brar said that after over a year of reaching out to various Punjab Government Ministers including, Dr. Inderbir Singh Nijjar, for start of BRTS metro bus service from Amritsar Airport to city center including Ghee Mandi near Darbar Sahib and also to the Punjab Transport department to start service to cities across Punjab, the State government continues to completely neglect this demand for the airport.
He further added, this is a big failure of the State government for still not being able to provide public transport connectivity to the airport, despite the airport having over 16 daily international flights to/from 10 international destinations. Instead, it continues to operate and promote bus service from Punjab to Delhi.
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