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After 2-year gap, flights from Ludhiana’s Sahnewal airport resume
Punjab CM flags off Hindon-Ludhiana flight, offering introductory fare of ₹999 for Ludhiana-NCR route. Flight to operate 5 days a week initially.
Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Wednesday flagged off the flight Hindon-Ludhiana-Hindon flight thereby resuming air traffic from Ludhiana Sahnewal airport after a gap of more than two years. The CM announced that for the first three months, the fare from Ludhiana to NCR will be just ₹999 as an introductory bonanza.
While the schedule is subject to changes, the flight is slated to arrive from Hindon at 2.30 pm tomorrow and will then take off the next day at 8.30 am.
Sahnewal Airport director Amardeep Nehra said they have set the schedule for the next two days but the timings are still being finalised.
The flight will be operated by M/s Big Charter Private Limited Company under the name Fly Big Airlines. Initially, the flight will operate for five days a week, but it will be operationalised throughout the week from next month.
The aircraft is a 19-seater twin otter aircraft which is a short take-off and landing utility transport aircraft that can be readily used on short runways.
The CM said that the state government will bear the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) on all 19 tickets. He said that all the 19 seats will be provided with VGF gap funding of ₹11,829 per ticket for one side journey adding that state share will be 20% (i.e. ₹2,366 per seat).
Mann added that the air terminal at Adampur is ready for operations and SpiceJet will start a daily flight from Adampur to Nanded, Delhi, Goa, Kolkata and Bengaluru in the next two months. “Likewise, Star Alliance will also start a daily flight from Adampur to Hindon, the CM said, adding that in the coming two months, daily flights will also resume from Bathinda to Delhi and Bathinda to Hindon airport by Alliance Air and Fly Big, respectively.
The CM announced that flights will also start operating from Sahnewal Airport to Delhi by Alliance Air in the next two months under the RCS-Udaan Scheme. He said that Halwara Airport will also become operational soon.
Technical issues led to cancellation of Sept 7 flight: officials
Just a day after launch, the flight to Hindon from Sahnewal, which was scheduled to take off at 11.10 am on September 7, was cancelled, leaving over a dozen passengers in the lurch.
Sharing his ordeal, city-based hotelier Harjinder Singh Kukreja said that he had booked the ticket from Ludhiana to Hindon and then for onward flight to Dehradun which has now been cancelled.
“It’s sad that the inaugural flight from Ludhiana to Dehradun scheduled for tomorrow, September 7, by FlyBig has been unexpectedly cancelled. I was supposed to be on the flight and found out about the cancellation only after reaching out to FlyBig’s helpline number,” he shared.
Airport director Amardeep Nehra said since they started operations after two years, there were some technical issues which led to the cancellation of the flight.
