Flights to Hubli take off from Hindon civil terminal

Ghaziabad: The new civil terminal at Sikandarpur on Wednesday started direct flights on the Hindon to Karnataka’s Hubli route. Officials of the Airports Authority

Ghaziabad: The new civil terminal at Sikandarpur on Wednesday started direct flights on the Hindon to Karnataka’s Hubli route. Officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said that the route having an air distance of 1282 kilometre is so far the longest under the Centre’s regional connectivity service scheme.

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This is the second route which became operational from the new terminal. The first route between Hindon and Pithoragarh started on October 11. The AAI officials said that another private airline has shown a keen interest in operating flights between Hindon and Kolkata.

“The second route from Hindon has been started within a month and the signs are encouraging. This is the first North regional airport to connect to Hubli airport. The flight will now be direct between the two destinations with the help of a 50-seater aircraft. The Hindon to Kolkata route is under proposal,” said an AAI’s North region officer.

The second route is made operational by Star Air and has a dedicated 50-seater aircraft for the route.

“The response has been very encouraging for the route and we have opened the bookings up to March. The seats for the first two days have been fully booked. In first week, we have about 95% occupancy. We started flight operations in January and this is our seventh station where the operations have begun. With a 50-seater aircraft, we will be able to serve passengers in a better manner. The same flight, after a stopover of 20 minutes at Hubli goes to Bengaluru as well,” said Simran Singh Tiwana, chief executive officer of the airline.

He said that the company has already made provisions for maintaining the operability of the aircraft.

“The technical issues can come at any time, but we have already chalked out several preventive measures. We have a critical component store at our facility in Bengaluru and also have a dedicated team of engineers. Besides, we have support maintenance of the jet engines from a renowned company,” Tiwana added.

The airport officials said that presently the flights to Pithoragarh with a nine-seater aircraft are not operational till November 10, and flights had to be cancelled on previous occasions due to technical issues.

“The company operating the Pithoragarh flights have told us that their aircraft is under maintenance till November 10. However, all the flights since the operations started on October 11 were 100% booked barring the Diwali day when six passengers arrived,” said Shobha Bhardwaj, the director of the civil terminal.

With the start of the direct flights to Hubli, passengers were elated and evoked a positive response.

“Several of our colleagues are boarding the first flight to Hubli, from where we can travel about 50km directly to reach our monastery. We arrived from Dharamshala. Earlier, there was no direct flight to Hubli. We either had to fly to Goa from Delhi and then to Hubli or fly to Bengaluru or Ahmedabad to take another flight to Hubli. We want the flight to be extended for seven days a week,” said Lobshany Gyaltsan, one of the first passengers on Hindon-Hubli flight.

Presently, the Hindon-Hubli flight is operating for three days in a week on Wednesday, Thursdays and Saturdays, with a fare price starting ₹3,699.

“There is a lot of rush at the Delhi airport but the surroundings here are calm and peaceful. Even reaching the Delhi airport is a cumbersome job. I came from my native place at Etawah and reached here from Ghaziabad railway station. There was earlier no direct flight to Hubli, but this facility is very useful as I travel at least once every month,” said Sarvesh Chaudhary, a passenger who works as a project engineer at Hubli.

The civil terminal is proposed to operate flights to eight routes of Nasik, Pithoragarh, Kannur, Hubli, Faizabad, Shimla, Jamnagar and Kalaburgi.