AVM appealed Arun Jaitley to resume the Amritsar-London /Birmingham Toronto flight

Amritsar, October 31 (Punjab Post Bureau) – Amritsar Vikas Manch has strongly appealed to Arun Jaitley Finance Minister Govt. of India to resume the Amritsar-London /Birmingham Toronto flight while welcoming Jaitley,  the Manch president S. Kulwant Singh Ankhi, has said that the Amritsar-London-Toronto flight was the most successful flight in the annals of Air India. Every flight used to have almost 100% occupancy, as often the Airline has to off load the passengers due to over booking. The people of Punjab are emotionally and religiously attached to Amritsar that is why even the indirect flight which connects Amritsar to London via Delhi was the No. 1 flight among all the Air India’s international flights originating from Delhi to various destinations in the world.

Mr. Ankhi has expressed regret that the Modi government is continuing with the same policy of discrimination with Amritsar airport as was being prevalent at the time of UPA govt. of congress. The ministry of Civil Aviation has started direct Ahmedabad-London-Newark flight by violating its hub & spoke policy under which all international flights of Air India are to originate only from Delhi and Mumbai airport only to appease the Prime Minister. But on the other hand hub & spoke policy comes in the way of staring direct flights from Amritsar to London/Toronto/Vancouver etc. Mr. Ankhi said that Amritsar airport is getting step motherly treatment from the BJP government despite the fact that out of mine MLA’s of BJP are from Amritsar and Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar districts. Even the Punjab government is not taking interest in starting direct international flights from Amritsar as they are having vested interest in Mohali airport.

            Due to 12000 Ft. longest runway and other facilities of International standards, Amritsar airport is next to Delhi in northern India. Amritsar airport has the advantage of being 45 minute closer to western countries as compared to Delhi. Thus a direct flight from Amritsar to London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Vancouver, L.A, New York, San Francisco can save fuel as well as 45-60 minutes time. Thus it is more profit able for any airline to fly direct from Amritsar as compared to Delhi.

            Mr. Ankhi said that Air India is making huge loss on its Amritsar-Delhi-London and Amritsar-Delhi-Birmingham flights. It brings the plane from Delhi to Amritsar to carry passengers to Delhi for their onward Journey to London/Birmingham by again flying over Amritsar. In this way it is wasting fuel and time by flying twice between Amritsar and Delhi only to benefit GMR which controls Delhi Airport. Direct flights from Amritsar to western countries will be more profitable to Air India.

Mr. Ankhi said that International traffic at the Amritsar Airport grew at 65% rate in the last five months from April to August 2016 from 123741 to 203204. Amritsar airport is directly connected to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Doha, Dubai, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, flights to Doha, Dubai are getting more than 90% load while the Malinda and Scoot are getting more than 80% load from Amritsar to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Amritsar Airport received 12.50 lakh passengers in 2015-16 and the No. 1 expected to exceed 16 Lakh in 2016-17. Amritsar is not only religious capital of Sikhs, it is also the world famous tourists destination where nearly 1 Lakh Tourists visit daily. This also adds more air traffic and more profit to airlines. Nearly 5 million Punjabi’s are settled in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia.

             Mr. Ankhi strongly appealed to Sh. Arun Jaitley to start direct international flights Amritsar to London/ Birmingham, Frankfurt, Toronto, Vancouver, LA, New York.