Airlines To Cut Down Flights From Amritsar Airport

[Sikhi4Ever]

Airlines to cut down flights from Amritsar airport followed by protest from leaders

Posted in: Asia

By SSNews | Nov 4, 2008 - 6:24:37 PM

Amritsar: A large number of international flights operating from the Rajasansi International Airport here were considering curtailing their international operations due to a decreasing number of passengers and cargo.

Singapore Airlines, which had started its tri-weekly flights from the holy city connecting major destinations across the world three years ago, was planning to drop its operations next year. The airport, which was ahead of others airports in the country showing more than 20 per cent growth, recorded a marginal negative growth of 0.9 per cent during August.

Sources in the Airports Authority of India revealed that Jet Airways, which was operating six flights a week from Amritsar to London, might curtail the flight operations during this winter season.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, Amritsar unit, felt that though the city airport had been granted international status, the airports authority continued to impose exorbitant landing charges on Singapore Airlines, double the normal domestic rates.

The issues which have made the airlines like Singapore Airlines and Jet Airways to take this drastic decision include the high cost of landing which was double than that of major metro airports, lack of cargo traffic and a host of other causes.

Dr Shavinder Singh Sandhu, local chairman of the CII, said the airport levied Rs 1.94 lakh per landing as against Rs 75,000. He said the government must immediately bring about parity on the charges at all airports. He urged the government to encourage cargo operations from here and make customs process simple as majority of exporters had rued that they were not getting their duty drawbacks within the time frame.

The hospitality industry with some leading hotel chains including Radisson, Marriott, Holiday Inn and Taj Group coming up in the city will get major setback, besides the local hotel industry will become unviable.

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Sidhu plans protest at Rajasansi airport

Amritsar, November 3: BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu said today that he, along with party activists, would hold a rally at the local international airport on November 5 to derive home the point that the airport needed to be used to its optimum potential. He said he would take up the issue of disparity with regard to landing rates at the airport here and in New Delhi in Parliament during winter session.

He said a large number of peripheral services had come up around the airport, including the hotels, multiplexes and commercial hubs. Airports provided jobs to the youth, he added.

The Amritsar Vikas Manch, an NGO, has also urged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Sidhu to approach Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the continuation of international flights from the city. Dr Charanjit Singh Gumtala, patron of the manch, said the silence of the state government over the issue was creating doubts about its seriousness for the development of the international airport.

He said it seemed that the state government was more worried about the Mohali airport rather than the development of the local one.

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Congress blames Delhi Lobbyists

Gurdaspur, November 3: Senior Congress leader M.M. Singh Cheema, member of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), while alleging that a section of hoteliers and transporters of the Delhi region were behind cut in flight services from the Amritsar international airport for their vested interests, has urged UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in the matter.

Cheema, who is also vice-president of the PPCC, today urged Sonia and Manmohan Singh to pass instructions to the civil aviation ministry not to discontinue the Amritsar-New Delhi-Nanded flight, which was started in view of the tercentenary celebrations of Gurta Gaddi Diwas, from tomorrow.

Though high fare is being charged from the passengers for this service, its termination will cause heartburn among the devotees, he added.

“A high rate of landing charges at the airport and the discontinuation of air services by certain airlines indicate that a strong lobby has been opposing airport’s growth, to the benefit of Delhi-based international airport and hotel industry,” he claimed, while talking to The Tribune.

He said development of Amritsar, which had been developing as hub of religious and medical tourism and opening horticulture export industry to the West Asia, European Union and the Far East and North America, would be affected.

He supported the demand of union minister of state for sports and youth welfare Manohar Singh Gill for the continuation of the Amritsar-Nanded flight.

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Majha leaders rally to retain Amritsar flights

Chandigarh, November 3: Ministers, MPs and MLAs of the Majha region, led by MP Ratan Singh Ajnala and Information and public relations minister Bikram Singh Majithia, today called on Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here to request him to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, union civil aviation minister Praful Patel and union commerce minister Kamal Nath to take immediate steps to ensure that ongoing international as well as domestic flights from Rajasansi Airport, Amritsar, were not discontinued and expansion of the airport be completed at the earliest.

They pleaded that the ministry should be asked to immediately lower the landing charges for flights in Amritsar in comparison to that at the Delhi airport. They said the basic purpose of starting international flights from Amritsar was to decongest the Delhi airport as 29 per cent international air traffic there was from Punjab. At present, the ministry was charging Rs1.54 lakh landing fee per flight in Amritsar from Singapore Airlines compared to Rs 75,000 charges at eh Delhi airport.

Similarly, Jet Airways was shelling Rs 94,000 as landing charges compared to Rs 69,000 paid by it in Delhi. They said nearly double the landing charges in Amritsar were making flight services from this airport unviable.

The legislators explained that the discontinuation of flights from Amritsar would hurt the business besides causing inconvenience to the pilgrims coming to Sri Darbar Sahib and Mata Vaishno Devi. Besides, the discontinuation of air services would cause inconvenience to thousands of passengers every month.

They also brought to the notice of the Chief Minister that Rs 140-crore expansion work of the Raja Sansi Airport was to be completed by October 31, 2008, but till date not even 40 per cent work had been completed. This had also resulted in drop in air traffic to the Amritsar airport.

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Save Rajasansi, SAD appeals to all parties

Amritsar, November 4: The SAD and the Youth Akali Dal have appealed to all political parties to sink their differences and work together to save the Rajasansi International Airport from going into oblivion.

Patron of the youth body and minister for information and broadcasting Bikram Singh Majithia has said time has come that all parties should rise above petty politics and save the hard won international status of the airport. It is imperative for all of us to ensure that trade and economy of Punjab is not hit due to the discontinuation of international flights from the city.

Every political party should try to convince the Centre to take steps to make international flights from Amritsar viable. Majithia says the retention of the international flights is not only necessary to ease traffic at the Delhi airport as 29 per cent traffic operating from there is from Punjab, but it also facilitates the devotees coming here from across the world to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple.

The decision will cause a lot of inconvenience to pilgrims to the Golden Temple and Vaishno Devi in Jammu and Kashmir.

He says the start of international flights from Amritsar and opening up of the Attari border trade route had sent positive signals to the investment community, international hotel chains, NRI pilgrims. Amritsar has been emerging as favourite tourist, trade and investment destination.

Majithia has urged the union government to keep the landing charges at the local airport lower than those of the Delhi airport.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had taken personal interest in the development of Amritsar as trading hub of the South-East Asia, the minister says, adding that Dr Singh should instruct the civil aviation ministry and commerce ministry to issue relevant notifications to reduce landing charges at the Amritsar airport.

Meanwhile, the Trade and Industries Association here urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to instruct the civil aviation and finance ministries to remove disparity in landing charges at the Rajasansi and Delhi airports.

He said a slowdown of the airport operations would affect the economic growth of this border region, which had been hit due to special tax concessions given to neighbouring state.

Earlier, the representatives of trade, industry and hotel industry submitted a memorandum to deputy commissioner K.S. Pannu.

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It's Badal clan fault

Chandigarh: Meanwhile, Jassi Khangura, Congress MLA, Kila Raipur, while taking a dig at SAD president and MP from Faridkot, Sukhbir Badal, has written to him asking him, “How often have you flown internationally from Amritsar ?” Khangura has said his information was that the Badals during their numerous overseas visits had not taken a single international flight from Amritsar, preferring Delhi and other metros.

He has further questioned if this was because Sukhbir actually sought the demise of Amritsar airport to promote the forthcoming Chandigarh International Airport, around which numerous vested Akali interests have acquired cheaply large tracts of land, partly by free market purchase but largely by coercion?

“Whilst you claim to promote the interests of the whole of Punjab, your failure to fly internationally from Amritsar is a further proof that closest to your heart are Mohali and Bathinda,” Khangura said.

The Amritsar district administration, along with representatives of trade and industry, will discuss with joint secretary, ministry of civil aviation, K. N. Srivastava, the situation on the Rajasansi International Airport during his two-day private visit to the holy city from November 8.

Deputy commissioner K.S. Pannu told The Tribune that the administration would make a presentation to the senior officer of the ministry on the current situation and would request him to take up those issues at the highest level to keep the development of the airport going.

[spamindersingh]

Good job things are moving to Chandigarh. I for one have always said the main hub (airport) should be in Chandigarh. It is more convenient for every one in Punjab (apart from people from Daoba and Majha plus people of Himachal and Haryana.

[S1ngh]

Amritsar airport got status of International airport more than two decades ago and because of the restrictions posted by central govt, it took soooo much time for the international flights to try this airport. Now after we got this far, there is no point of making another airport while leaving asr airport unfinished.. its like nobody care for the betterment of punjab.

As far as i know Chandigarh is not a part of Punjab & officially its the UT.. plus Chandigarh is not that far from delhi. There should be one fully developed airport in Punjab that should be in Amritsar because its the center of our daily life (religiously/politically wise).

[lsingh]

Good job things are moving to Chandigarh. I for one have always said the main hub (airport) should be in Chandigarh. It is more convenient for every one in Punjab (apart from people from Daoba and Majha plus people of Himachal and Haryana.

Chandigarh is near Delhi so it makes no sense for an airport there. Takes 3 hrs to get to Delhi from Chandigarh.

The airport is needed at Amritsar as the majority of people that use it live within 2-3 hrs of it. Plus it is the main City of the Sikhs so should be devloped, Chandigarh is not even in punjab it is controlled from the Centre.

[saint-soldier]

no point in building a airport in chandigarh, delhi is too close to it anyways. They just need to fix the amritsar airport instead of wasting money....

[Singhson]

The main hub should be in Jalandhar man! <_< :D

[sikh in melbourne]

why not anyone say ..if we can got both of two???

[spamindersingh]

no point in building a airport in chandigarh, delhi is too close to it anyways. They just need to fix the amritsar airport instead of wasting money....

You guys got rockets or something ? Its a good 240-250KM journey from Chandigarh to New Delhi, thats an easy 5 hours in accordance with the average safe speed on indian roads. So all this talk of Delhi being close to Chandigarh is utter nonesense. Even if it was closer does it matter. Look at places like London, we have heathrow, gatwick, stanstead, london city and even poxy luton airport is not that far away.

Chandigarh airport will be convenient for everyone not just majhail and jullunderia. If anything an airport should have been built in Jalandhar or Ludhiana as they are more central to Punjab then Amritsar. As it happens the Jalandhar airport project was a sham and instead we got the Gujral Science thing built which is a 3rd rate attrraction.

Ludhiana has ample space for an airport and the airforce base close to Ludhiana could have been converted for civillian use without much capital expenditure. As it happens all the political bigwigs have they posh houses in chandigarh and thats where they want the airport made, no doubt many of them would have acquired land around mohali at relatively throw away prices (prior to the airport upgrade announcement) which has probably jumped in value by crores now.

Chandigarh is only 3 hours or so from Jalandhar (130KM) and the road via nawanshere is very good. Most the NRI who use the airport are form daoba so 3 hours is hardly a mega journey.

Its about 83KM from Jalandhar to Amritsar so only an additional 47KM to chandigarh/mohali.

The true reason these flights are being pulled is becuase airlines make the mega money from full priced business tickets as opposed to the cheap block booked economy tickets that most of us buy. Takers for these tickets on flight to Amritsar are non exisistant and airlines can't survive on economy fares. The landing rights at Amritsar are expensive as well (no doubt a government ploy to keep IGIA Delhi Airport is the forefront of aviation).

[pun9ab1]

this was bound to happen, whenever I went to Amritsar It was always empty of passenger.

[S1ngh]

this was bound to happen, whenever I went to Amritsar It was always empty of passenger.

Which airline u traveled? Singapore airline to Amritsar usually booked full and its been like that since the first day...