Flight to Jammu gets ministry approval

Sukhmeet Bhasin

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Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 28

To boost regional connectivity, Alliance Air is starting a flight from Bathinda to Jammu in two months.

The airline, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the national carrier Air India, is presently providing Delhi to Bathinda and Bathinda to Delhi flight thrice a week.

The Union Aviation Ministry has approved and decided to start the new flight under the regional connectivity scheme.

Bathinda and Jammu are already on the air route of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) due to which it is easy for the authority to start flight.

The flights going towards Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir cross through the Delhi circuit, which includes Karnal, Ambala, Chandigarh, Shimla, Bilaspur, Jammu and Ladakh.

While returning, due to the cloud cover, flights take the path over Jammu via Pathankot, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Bathinda, Rewari and Delhi.

Bathinda is the only city in Punjab having been selected under the ‘Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik’ (UDAN 2) scheme for second tier cities.

The tourists or pilgrims going to Vaishnu Devi or to Srinangar or Gulmarg from the region will be benefitted from this new flight as earlier it took around 6 to 8 hours to reach Jammu from Bathinda by road but now, the journey duration will be 40 minutes.

Since the airport became operational, residents have been demanding that more flights should be started from here.

Residents are demanding that flight to Chandigarh and Amritsar should also be started from the domestic airport.

The Bathinda domestic airport has been built at a cost of Rs 25 crore, with the state government acquiring and providing 40 acres in Virk Kalan village. It became operational in December 2016.

The airport is adjacent to the defence airbase at Bhisiana and has no runway of its own. It is using the 9,000 feet runway of the Bhisiana airbase.

The airport has been constructed as per the conditions required for two 50-seater aircraft (ATR) to operate at the same time.

A catchment area of at least 100 km radius has no air facility for civilians as of now. Besides, the overall development of the region, Rs 20,000 crore Guru Gobind Singh Refinery, Army Cantonment and Banawali thermal plant are the major push factors for the domestic airport.