Alliance Air new aircraft on Kullu route from today

Abhinav Vashisht

KULLU, AUGUST 14

Alliance Air will continue operations on the Delhi-Chandigarh-Kullu route with newly inducted ATR-42 600 series aircraft instead of ATR-72 aircraft from tomorrow. The schedule remains the same with direct flights between Kullu and Delhi on Sundays and hopping flights through Chandigarh on rest of days.

Kullu-Manali Airport director Neeraj Kumar Srivastava said they had received confirmation regarding the starting of the scheduled operations of ATR-42 aircraft by Alliance Air from Monday. He said the load carrying capacity would be reviewed by the airline and only then it could be ascertained how many passengers the aircraft would carry while departing from Kullu-Manali Airport at Bhuntar.

At present, the 72-seater ATR-72 aircraft is allowed to ferry around 15-20 passengers while departing due to load stipulations because of short runway. The airline is charging fares ranging from Rs 22,000 to Rs 26,000 for a one way 85-minute flight from Kullu to Delhi and from Rs 19,000 to Rs 24,000 per seat for a 45-minute flight from Kullu to Chandigarh. The ATR-72 is allowed to land at Kullu with around 45-50 passengers, due to which fares between Delhi-Kullu and Chandigarh-Kullu were considerably low.

Beneficiaries of the tourism industry are hopeful that the fares will be reduced considerably by the induction of economically viable aircraft. They said the exorbitant fares were a major deterrent for tourists to visit the destination.

They added that the government should provide subsidised fares on the pattern of Kashmir and North-East to Himachal as well because tourism was the backbone of the economy of the state.

Carrying capacity to be reviewed

The load carrying capacity will be reviewed by the airline and only then it could be ascertained how many passengers the aircraft will carry while departing from Kullu-Manali Airport at Bhuntar. Neeraj Kumar Srivastava, Airport director