Punjab Post Daily Online Newspaper & Print Media
Harjap Singh Aujla
Most Indian airports are meant to be basically domestic airports for quick long haul inter-city connectivity in a vast diverse country and international flights become their secondary business. But there are some airports like Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum and Cochin, which are first and foremost international airports and domestic traffic is less and keeps fluctuating most of the time. The main reason behind their being more international is the enormous load factor generated by the expatriate Indian population hailing from their respective catchment regions. There are three million NRIs, who can be served by Amritsar International Airport.
During 1950s and 60s a large population from the districts of Amritsar, Jalandhar, Hosharpur and Kapurthala moved to the British Midlands and metropolitan London area of Great Britain as industrial laborers to fill in for the British youth killed during the Second World War. Eventually all of them ended up making England their adopted home. Similarly starting from the seventies and continuing to date, there has been a substantial traffic of educated and skilled manpower from virtually the same region of Punjab to British Columbia and Ontario in Canada and New York and San Francisco areas in America. With strong ties to their country of birth, they keep paying frequent visits to Punjab. The only international airport in their region is in Amritsar. So Amritsar is bound to be a very popular airport for British and North American Punjabi diaspora.
Passenger load for Amritsar International Airport varies in proportion to the population of the Punjabi diaspora living in compact areas served by a particular airport. For example the area of the British Midlands situated around the city of Birmingham, with an Indian Punjabi population of more than half a million, accounts for the highest chunk of Punjabi population living outside India. In fact Birmingham International Airport generated the largest load factor for Amritsar. At present in excess of eight flights are running between Amritsar and Birmingham each week, four each operated by Turkmenistan Airlines and Air India. There is scope for even more flights.
The other areas of highest Punjabi population are the provinces of British Columbia served by Vancouver International Airport and the province of Ontario served by Pearson International Airport of Toronto in Canada. Both these areas have upwards of three hundred thousand Punjabis in each province. Other than these areas San Francisco International Airport serves roughly two hundred thousand Punjabis living in Sacramento – Yuba City – San Jose – Fresno – San Francisco belt. There can be four flights per week between Amritsar and San Francisco.
Now Italy also has close to two hundred thousand Punjabis in the Milan to Rome agricultural belt. Milan can fill a hundred and fifty seater aircraft for Amritsar. Metropolitan London also accounts for roughly two hundred thousand expatriate Punjabis. If passengers are added from some American and Canadian cities, London can fill a two hundred and fifty seater plane for Amritsar. The other centres of lesser Punjabi diaspora are not being served with direct links to Amritsar International Airport. There can be daily non-stop Amritsar – Toronto and Amritsar –Vancouver flights. At one time Singapore Airlines was serving passengers between Vancouver and Amritsar thrice a week. There was no dearth of passenger load on this segment, but the five thousand miles of extra distance between Amritsar and Singapore was making it unviable.
Since each of the Middle-East’s Etihad Airways and Emirates Airlines are flying to more than one hundred destinations worldwide from their respective hubs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Amritsar can easily fill one Boeing 777 aircraft for each of these airlines every day.
At present, in addition to India’s own aviation companies, three international airlines Qatar Airways, Turkmenistan Airlines and Uzbekistan Airways are flying from Amritsar International Airport. Qatar Airways is by far the most successful airline operating from Amritsar Airport. Its economy class is always hundred percent full and they are rejecting a lot of passengers. The other two fly four or five times each week from Amritsar International Airport. If they can start flying to Toronto or Vancouver, they can easily fly to Amritsar on all seven days of the week.
As far as the domestic flights are concerned, Amritsar Airport is very well connected to New Delhi. On an average, eight to ten flights shuttle between these two cities. Currently Jet Airways leads the pack with four daily flights. They are code-sharing with Etihad Airways and Alitalia. Air India these days flies thrice a day between Amritsar and New Delhi. They are also picking up passengers under code-share for Air Canada’s Europe to Canada flights. Spicejet flies only once these days between Amritsar and New Delhi, but they have permission for more. Spicejet manages a very successful daily operation between Bangalore, Bombay and Amritsar on one end and Srinagar Kashmir on the other end. Even Jet Airways flies from Amritsar to Bombay.
What Amritsar lacks is a daily flight from the Eastern Indian metropolis of Calcutta. A trans North Indian flight originating from Calcutta and stopping over at Patna, Lucknow and Jaipur and terminating in Amritsar can be very success. During the summer season, it can even be extended up to Srinagar. Initially it may lose money on some sectors, but after a few months, it will start generating profit in all sub-sectors.
In a nut shell Amritsar International Airport, on its own, can generate enough traffic for a daily flight of a full bodied aircraft of Air India, Jet Airways, Air Canada, Virgin Atlantic or the British Airways for London, Birmingham, Toronto and Vancouver. For San Francisco another passenger pick-up stop like Bangalore or Hyderabad will be needed for profitable occupancy. The sooner it can be done the better it will be for aviation industry and tourism in India in general and Punjab in particular.
