Air-India starts more flights as delhiites head to north-east

After Goa and Kerala, Guwahati in Assam is turning out to be most preferred travel destination for Delhiites, reports Sidhartha Roy.

After Goa and Kerala, Guwahati in Assam is turning out to be most preferred travel destination for Delhiites.

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In a bid to promote tourism in North East India, the Centre now allows most of its employees to travel by air if they are visiting any area in that part of the country.

The result — government employees are travelling in hordes to Guwahati, which has an international airport (Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport).

The demand is so huge that the national carrier, Air India, has started additional flights between Delhi and Guwahati.

The North East states are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.

"We already have a daily flight from Delhi to Guwahati but all the flights till December are booked," said a senior Air India official on condition of anonymity, as he is not authorised to talk to the media.

"We are witnessing heavy passenger movement on the Delhi-Guwahati and return route thanks to the special Leave Travel Concession (LTC) of the government," he said.

The new flights, Delhi-Guwahati (IC 8611) and Guwahati-Delhi (IC 8612) will start from November 16.

At present, Air India operates an Airbus A320 aircraft on the Delhi-Bagdogra-Guwahati route (IC 880) daily, which can accommodate 145 passengers.

The new flight would be operated on a smaller Bombardier CRJ aircraft, which will carry up to 70 passengers. This additional flight would operate on all days except Sunday.

The government permits Group A and Group B central government employees to travel by air from their place of posting or nearest airport to a city in North East or nearest airport.