Inaugural Feb. 1 flight cancelled as not a single ticket was booked
Mysore/Mysuru: The fate of Alliance Air flight between Mysuru and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra hinges on the occupancy of Sunday (Feb. 5). Not a single ticket was booked for the inaugural flight from either of the directions on Wednesday (Feb.1) and as such, the inaugural flight was cancelled.
Airport sources told Star of Mysore that only two or three tickets have been booked from Mysuru to Sindhudurg for the Feb. 5 flight.
“People of Mysuru are not at all familiar with Sindhudurg and Mysuru is in no way connected with that place in Maharashtra. We have conveyed the sentiments of Mysureans to Alliance Air. If there are no encouraging bookings for the Feb. 5 flight, that too will be cancelled and the ticket money will be refunded,” Airport authorities said.
The Mysuru-Sindhudurg flight is scheduled to be operated on Wednesdays and Sundays and will leave Hyderabad at 2 pm to reach Mysuru at 4 pm. From Mysuru, it will reach Sindhudurg at 5.30 pm. In the return direction, the plane will leave Sindhudurg at 6 pm and reach Mysuru at 7.30 pm and proceed towards Hyderabad on the same day.
Soon after the announcement of the Mysuru-Sindhudurg flight, the travel and tourism stakeholders in Mysuru said that the flight served no purpose. They instead demanded an additional flight to Goa and new flights to Kochi, Coimbatore, Tirupati and Shirdi to boost those sectors.
The Mysuru-Sindhudurg-Hyderabad flight could be converted to Mysuru-Kochi-Hyderabad flight and this makes more sense and the route has the potential, they reasoned.
Stakeholders said that the Alliance Air’s flight from Hyderabad reaches Mysuru and takes off to Goa. Given the high demand for Goa travel, it is difficult to get bookings.
“Despite huge demand and 100 percent occupancies from both sides, this daily Goa flight was reduced to five days a week and Sindhudurg was accommodated in the flight schedule twice a week. Why this was done is best known to the Airport authorities,” the stake- holders said.
They added that unilateral decisions are being taken without consulting the actual tourism and travel stakeholders and without understanding the ground realities. “Ultimately these wrong decisions will affect the image of Mysuru’s tourism and travel sector,” they said.
Air india is trying to turn around under the new TATA management. The Tourism Industry representatives should write to the new dynamic CEO Mr.Campbell Wilson requesting Air India to start new flights from Mysuru. Note that Alliance Air which was a subsidiary of Air India was not part of the disinvestment assets and is still a government company. All the ATR-72 , aircraft’s of Air India and the Dornier 228 , 19 seater Aircrafts are with Alliance Air. After runway expansion we can see Air India operating flights on the Mysuru Route.
Hare brained scheme ! Was any market survey done at all before launching flights like this ?
@Sanjay Kini
I need a good cardiac surgeon, who treated your mother , and hence your measured opinion! Why did you leave that side of your post?
Tourism + agent for doctors, eh?