Come Sept 6, city to be back on air map after three years

MP Arora and Union minister of state for civil aviation General VK Singh (retd) to attend inaugural flight take-off

The city is set to be back on the airways map after a gap of three years, with flights set to resume at the Sahnewal airport from September 6 as part of the Udan scheme.

A return flight to commence from the Hindon Domestic Airport in Ghaziabad; will run five days a week. (HT FILE)

A flight from Ghaziabad’s Hindon Domestic Airport will arrive at Sahnewal at 10.50 am. The return flight, meanwhile, will depart from Sahnewal at 11.10 am. One-way fare for the one-hour-fifteen-minute flight is ₹3,148.

Union minister of state for civil aviation (MoCA) Gen VK Singh (retd) will be the chief guest at the inaugural flight take-off from Hindon to Sahnewal, while Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha Sanjeev Arora will be the guest of honour.

Arora said the flight would operate five days a week, from Monday to Friday, at the start. However, the flight would operate daily from October-end. He revealed that from September 10, onwards, Hindon will be connected to Bathinda also.

It was on September 1, 2017, when the Ludhiana-Delhi-Ludhiana flight was awarded to Alliance Air in the first round of bidding, under the Udan route. However, this flight was discontinued on August 31, 2020, after completion of three-year tenure. Since then, the city has remained without any domestic flights.

Arora said he had on August 16 written to the MoCA secretary Rajiv Bansal with regard to resumption of flights to Sahnewal airport under Udan Scheme. He had further highlighted the connectivity issue being faced by the residents of Ludhiana and surrounding areas.

Sahnewal airport is the only facility in the region that can handle commercial flights. Thus, seeking the secretary’s intervention, Arora had demanded to take steps to expedite the resumption of flights to Sahnewal airport.

The minister communicated through a letter dated January 27 that the flight from Hindon to Sahnewal will start as oar of the summer schedule.

Expressing his pleasure over the development, Arora said the route has now been awarded to Big Charters with a 19-seater aircraft under Udan 4.2 bidding round under the summer schedule. He said a private carrier, Big Charter Private Limited’s Fly Big, will be operating the flight through a 19-seater DHC-400 twin engine new aircraft, made in Canada. Arora thanked the minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia, the MoCA secretary and Big Charter Pvt Ltd Managing Director Sanjay Mandavia for acceding to his request of resuming the flight.