The IndiGo airlines on Thursday announced the beginning of eight new flights on the Bhopal-Udaipur, Ahmedabad-Jammu, Ranchi-Bhubaneshwar, and Indore-Chandigarh routes in an effort to improve connectivity between domestic routes.
“Out of these new connections, Bhopal-Udaipur flight will be an RCS route and will increase accessibility between the states,” the company said in a release.
In order to improve connection and accessibility between domestic routes, Sanjay Kumar, the airline’s chief strategy and revenue officer, expressed his company’s pleasure at the announcement of flights on new domestic routes across seven states.
The airline also executed a successful test landing at Hollongi Airport, also known as Donyi Polo Airport, on October 18. 2019 saw the laying of the airport’s greenfield foundation stone. It will service Itanagar, which is located about 14 km south of the city centre and serves as the capital of Arunachal Pradesh. The airport was designed to accommodate narrow-body planes, which may hold 180–200 passengers.
“The critical works required for operating the airport are complete. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to inaugurate the airport but a date has not been fixed yet. We expect a boost for the tourism sector with the commencement of flights from this airport,” an official said.
Another official stated that there may soon be a direct connection between Itanagar and Delhi. IndiGo is planned to connect Itanagar with Guwahati and Kolkata. Once the airport is operational, he noted, the regional airline flybig, located in Indore, is also likely to start operating flights between Itanagar and Guwahati.
“NorthEast is of strategic importance to us. IndiGo remains one of the few carriers who have achieved successful expansion in the northeast over and above merely adding service because of Route Dispersal Guidelines mandates,” Abhijit DasGupta, head of network planning at IndiGo.
“Hollongi is certainly high on our priority list. We are evaluating economic and operational factors and will make appropriate announcements when we have completed this assessment,” he added.
