International flights

For the huge Punjabi diaspora and international travellers from the region, any prospect of avoiding the cumbersome journey from and to the IGI Airport in New Delhi comes as a huge relief. While direct or IGIA-linked flights from various global destinations to Chandigarh continue to be a pipe dream, any such development concerning Amritsar brightens the eyes. Air India has announced a thrice-a-week direct flight beginning March-end from Amritsar to Gatwick in London, replacing the direct link to Heathrow airport that is operational at present. The private carrier will also launch five additional services to Heathrow from Delhi and Mumbai. Air India already has a direct flight from Amritsar to Birmingham.

At the recent NRI-related events in Punjab, the issue of expediting the process of having direct air links to Chandigarh and Amritsar came up prominently. Many questioned the delay and reluctance. Statistics tabulated for Jalandhar alone at the time gave a rough idea of the scale of international travel activity: nearly 1,000 air tickets being bought daily and 400 travellers, on an average, using just the government buses bound for the Delhi airport. A majority of travellers in the region, especially students, routinely bank on taxi services. Not introducing more direct flights to Chandigarh and Amritsar defies logic. Considering the passenger load on the IGIA and domestic airports in New Delhi, diverting traffic to these international airports makes complete business sense. With the exponential rise in air travel and given what the future holds, harping on the complexities involved in introducing more flights is a lost opportunity. It’s time to urgently fix the problems.

The cancellation of flights owing to foggy conditions warrants urgent upgradation of the landing systems in Chandigarh. Defence-related concerns cannot be allowed to linger on indefinitely. Nor the issues of route allocation, that require bilateral and multilateral arrangements between the governments and the airlines. There seems little effort to work towards any time-bound resolution. Non-utilisation of quality resources is a waste of the taxpayer’s money and a disservice to the public.