More flights sought for city airport

Amritsar, December 17

In an attempt to boost international connectivity for Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport, FlyAmritsar Initiative recently organised a meeting with top executives, commercial and network planning teams of over 10 airlines at a hotel in New Delhi.

FlyAmritsar is a civil society global initiative for a focused approach toward bringing in more international and domestic flights to the airport that takes forward the work started by Amritsar-based NGO Amritsar Vikas Manch (AVM) in 1990s.

Sameep Singh Gumtala, FlyAmritsar Initiative convener and Overseas Secretary of the AVM, delivered a presentation to the attendees on the past, present and future of the Amritsar airport.

He said the airport had a great potential for direct international flights to the US, Canada, Europe, UK and Australia due to its religious and historical importance.

Yogesh Kamra, co-convenor of FlyAmritsar Initiative said, “This is for the first time that key personnel of world’s leading international airlines were present in a collaborative brainstorming session for starting direct flights from Amritsar.

Airlines reiterated that if the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) opens up bilateral air service agreement (ASA) discussions to include Amritsar as ‘point-of-call’ then all these airlines would like to add Amritsar on their network route map very soon.

Pras S Dasan, Director Commercial Operations, South East Asia for Fly Dubai, said “We are interested in Amritsar operations and we find it as a very high potential destination. However, opportunities are limited due to lack of capacity through the bilateral ASA.”

Millions of devotees are expected to come to Amritsar in 2019 for 550 years of Guru Nanak Dev Gurpurb celebrations, said Manmohan Singh Brar, patron, Amritsar Vikas Manch, and member of the airport advisory panel. — TNS