Passengers ask for more

Pavneet Singh Chadha

Tribune News Service

Mohali, December 11

A majority of passengers boarding the maiden flight to Bangkok said Chandigarh should be connected by air to more destinations, domestic as well as international.

Naresh Verma, a local resident, said Chandigarh should be connected to countries in Europe and Asia-Pacific besides the US and Canada. “A large number of Punjabi people are settled in Vancouver, Birmingham, Auckland and London. The authorities should work towards connecting the city with more international destinations. It would be beneficial for students studying abroad too,” he said.

Fliers said at present, they were hassled by travelling to Delhi for a connecting flight.

“Including Bangkok, only three international flights are currently operating from Chandigarh. Extending international flight operations would be convenient and save time and cost,” said Gurvinder Singh.

Another passenger said a direct flight from Chandigarh to Amritsar, Shimla and Kullu would be aiding tourism.

Pankaj Kumar, Executive Director (Sales and Marketing), Air India, said, “In future, we would look at expanding operations. For starting a route or a flight, a number of factors, including assessment of demand, viability and infrastructure, are taken into account.”

“Currently, there is not a viable and adequate market to fill a wide-bodied aircraft to far-off destinations twice or thrice a week. So we try and concentrate passenger traffic and pool resources to bring them to Delhi, which is the hub for Air India,” he added.

On connecting to Amritsar, the officials said they would study the potential for traffic and number of passengers travelling to the holy city considering that Chandigarh was well connected to Amritsar by road and railways.

Chandigarh International Airport Limited (CHIAL) CEO Suneel Dutt said once the infrastructure was in place, the airport would be connected to more destinations, regionally and globally. He said, “In Shimla, the problem is that the strip is narrow for a 70-seater aircraft. It is a table top runway which has a limited length since it is built between mountains. A 70-seater aircraft can thus only carry 15-20 passengers due to pay load restrictions.”

The Air India Chandigarh to Kullu flight has only been temporarily suspended due to weather and visibility problems in winter, said Air India officials.