Representative of various airlines with FlyAmritsar Initiative members
Amritsar: In an attempt to boost greater International connectivity for Punjab & neighboring states from Shri Guru Ram Dass Jee (SGRDJ) International Airport Amritsar, FlyAmritsar Initiative organized and hosted a meeting with top executives, commercial and network planning teams of over 10 airlines at Le Meridian hotel, New Delhi. FlyAmritsar is a civil society global initiative for a focused approach toward bringing in more international and domestic flights to the Airport that takes forward the work started by Amritsar-based NGO Amritsar Vikas Manch (AVM) in 1990s.
Sameep Singh Gumtala FlyAmritsar Initiative Convener & Overseas Secretary AVM, delivered a presentation to the attendees on the past, present and future of the Amritsar Airport, passenger traffic for the past 10 years, besides highlighting the role and achievements of the FlyAmritsar Initiative and AVM. He said that Amritsar Airport has a great potential for direct international flights to the US, Canada, Europe, UK and Australia due to its religious and historical importance. More than five million Sikhs and Punjabis were living in these countries and they prefer Amritsar for their inward and outward journey, he added.
Yogesh Kamra, Co-Convenor of FlyAmritsar Initiative said, “This is for the first time that key personnel of world’s leading International airlines including Emirates, Etihad, Fly Dubai, Kuwait Air, Oman Air, Air Arabia, Thomas Cook UK, Air Asia, IndJets, NokScoot were present in a collaborative brainstorming session for starting direct flights from Amritsar. Airlines reiterated that if Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Government of India (GOI) opens up Bilateral Air Service agreement (ASA) discussions to include Amritsar as “Point-of-call” then all these airlines would like to add Amritsar on their network route map very soon. Airlines shared their views on Amritsar and how bilateral air agreements are a major hindrance for the start of flights to Amritsar.
Speaking on the occasion, Pras S Dasan, Director Commercial Operations, South East Asia for Fly Dubai said “We are interested in looking at operations into Amritsar and we find it as a very high potential destination. However, we are limited by the lack of capacity through the bilateral ASA. We are quite hopeful that the GOI will take a lenient view and grant Dubai the necessary seat capacity and permission to fly into the Holy City of Amritsar”. Dasan thanked FlyAmritsar initiative, AVM for its effort.
Millions of devotees are expected to start coming to Amritsar in 2019 for 550 years of Guru Nanak Dev Gurpurab celebrations said, Manmohan Singh Brar, Patron Amritsar Vikas Manch and member of Airport advisory committee. He said that State government and Punjab tourism ministry should take a proactive approach to request the GOI, MoCA to grant special permission to all these airlines willing to operate to Amritsar. He said all these airlines are already operating or have been allowed to operate their commercial operations to other Tier-II International airports like Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Goa, Trivandrum, Kochi etc.
A video created by the airline highlighting prominent places of Amritsar to promote Amritsar tourism that has been showcased in entire South East Asia was also shown to the attendees. Air Asia X started its operations due to the efforts by FlyAmritsar from Kuala Lumpur to Amritsar in August this year.
