New Delhi: Here is some good news for air travellers from Mysuru. More flights will be introduced from Mysuru to smaller airports like Hubballi in two months. The flights come under a network that will connect other cities like Ahmedabad, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Tirupati.
The ambitious Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), known as UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik), launched by the Narendra Modi Government will be expanded and the Mysore Airport at Mandakalli will handle more flights.
The all-inclusive airfare under RCS is Rs.2,500 and the airfare cap will be indexed to inflation and revised quarterly.
At present, the Mysore Airport handles only one flight from Mysuru to Hyderabad via Chennai. This TruJet flight that began its daily operations on Sept.20, 2017 has a 72-seat capacity. It arrives at the airport at 7.20 pm and departs at 7.50 pm to Chennai and from there, it proceeds towards Hyderabad. On an average, each trip has over 65 to 70 passengers and according to airport authorities, the response has been good. This apart, the Airport handles many private jets like it handled hundreds of flights during the last Assembly election campaign.
Buoyed by the good response the lone flight is getting from the Mysore Airport, IndiGo Airlines is set to operate at least eight new services from Mysuru and Hubballi in August under the UDAN scheme. The flights will be fully operational by February 2019.
In a written reply, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha on July 26, Air Odisha is expected to start its operations on Mysuru-Chennai sector and IndiGo is expected to operate the Hubballi-Ahmedabad and Hubballi-Chennai flights from August. The different services, operated by Air Odisha, IndiGo and Star Air (Ghodawat Group), will connect Mysuru with Hubballi, Hyderabad, Pune, Tirupati, Ahmedabad and Chennai.
IndiGo will add one more service on its circuit by operating a Hubballi-Hyderabad flight in August while Ghodawat, which has won the Hubballi-Hindon route, will also start its service from next month. IndiGo will also start its Hubballi-Ahmedabad and Hubballi-Chennai services next month.
Another report on the RCS released by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) says that smaller towns like Puducherry, Salem, Neyveli and Kadapa will be connected to Mysuru.
Chennai to Kannur IndiGo service will begin in December as the Kannur airport is expected to be ready in two to three months. The routes to Puducherry, Salem, Neyveli, Kadapa and Mysuru were awarded to Air Odisha under phase 1 of the regional connectivity scheme but could not be commissioned either because the airports were not ready or the airlines were not ready, the report said.
A senior official of AAI said, as of now, the RCS scheme has taken off well in the southern region after services were launched to Mysuru, Salem, Kadapa, Hubballi and a few other towns last year. There will be more flights under round two of the scheme as the money earmarked for viability gap funding to encourage airlines to fly is more for southern region. He hinted that there will be more flights to small towns in the south.
This post was published on July 28, 2018 6:44 pm