Flights to Ashgabat from Amritsar airport set to be resumed

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 2

Turkmenistan Airlines will resume its flights from Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport here to Ashgabat from March 7. Besides, Singapore Airlines’ low-cost carrier Scoot has decided to increase frequency of its flights. FlyAmritsar Initiative, a local organisation that works for better air connectivity, has welcomed the development.

Sameep Singh Gumtala, convener, FlyAmritsar Initiative, said Turkmenistan Airlines had suspended flights to Amritsar in April 2019 due to a ban by the European Union on its flights from Ashgabat to Europe, including London, Birmingham and Frankfurt. He said consequently, the airlines had also suspended its flights to Amritsar as a majority of the passengers fly to Ashgabat to reach their destinations in Europe.

He said in October last year, the airline received clearance from the European Union Safety Agency and resumed its flights to Frankfurt and Birmingham. “It is one of the longest serving airlines which has been operating from the city airport since 2001,” he added.

According to the new schedule available on its website, the airlines will operate flights to Amritsar on Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Gumtala said Singapore Airlines’low-cost carrier Scoot would also increase frequency of its Singapore-Amritsar flight from four times to six times weekly from March 8 to 31 and May 1 to August 31.

He said Air India was also operating its Amritsar-London flight three times a week, which started on October 31 last year on the occasion of 550 birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev.

He said with the start of these new flights, Amritsar would be directly connected to nine international destinations – London, Birmingham, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Sharjah, Doha, Tashkent and Ashgabat.

There are also direct flights from the city to nine domestic destinations — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Patna, Ahmedabad, Nanded, Jaipur and Srinagar.