Ludhiana back on air map; flight to Delhi resumes after 3 years

Nitin Jain

Sahnewal (Ludhiana), September 6

After remaining off air for over three years, Ludhiana returned to the air map with the resumption of a direct flight to and from Delhi on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann received the first flight at the airport since August 2020 — a plane from Delhi landed at the domestic airport in Sahnewal this afternoon. Among those present to receive it was Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora.

First Dehradun flight cancelled

• The first flight from Ludhiana to Dehradun via Delhi, which was scheduled to begin from Thursday, was cancelled by the private operator, without assigning any reason or making any official announcement.
• Private carrier FlyBig could not be contacted for a comment.

Mann said the government would subsidise the fare for three months. He said the private airline has acceded to his request to charge only Rs 999 for the one-way journey between Ludhiana and Delhi for the first three months instead of Rs 3,148, a whopping 68 per cent reduction. “This will be cheaper than the bus fare,” he said.

To compensate the operator, the state government would bear the viability gap funding (VGF) on all the 19 tickets. “We will pay the deficit of Rs 2,149 per ticket to benefit the travellers,” he said.

Speaking to The Tribune at Sahnewal airport, the CM said the resumption of direct flight between Ludhiana and Delhi would benefit the industry and frequent travellers.

“We are also in the process of opening the upcoming international airport at Halwara in Ludhiana shortly, following which more domestic and international flights will be operated from here,” the CM said.

He said the upcoming air terminal at Adampur would also be ready for operations shortly and SpiceJet has agreed to launch daily flights to Nanded, Delhi, Goa, Kolkata and Bengaluru from there while Star Alliance would connect Adampur with Hindon in the next two months.

Mann also announced daily flight between Ludhiana and Bathinda, which would also be connected to Delhi, from Friday. “More domestic flights will also be started from Sahnewal shortly,” he added.

The inaugural flight was delayed by almost six hours and took off around 2:30 pm from Hindon domestic airport near Delhi instead of the scheduled timing of 9:25 am.

The delay was caused due to the pre-occupation of the Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Gen VK Singh (retd), who was the chief guest at the function to flag off the inaugural flight at Hindon.

The first flight landed at Sahnewal domestic airport around 4 pm and took off after an hour for the return journey. The development assumes significance as the lone Ludhiana-Delhi flight had been suspended since August 2020.