Amritsar – A delegation of FlyAmritsar Initiative attended the recently held first Global Aviation Summit 2019 in Mumbai organized by Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India with the aim to provide the most comprehensive platform for civil aviation. FlyAmritsar Initiative also aims to connect with different world airlines and governments to encourage them to start direct flights to Amritsar.
Delegation including Yogesh Kamra, Co-Convener of FlyAmritsar Initiative and Additional Secretary of NGO Amritsar Vikas Manch (AVM), Daljit Singh Saini, Initiative taskforce member held meetings with several airlines at the Global Aviation Summit to present Amritsar Airport to the aviation World and major Global Airline operators. Member Parliament from Amritsar Gurjeet Sing Aujla also joined the delegation at the Summit.
Yogesh Kamra informed that the delegation met with top executive team, Network Planning Officers of Indigo Airline, Japan Airline, AirAsia India, Star Air, Counsel General of Saudi Arabia,Air India, LOT Polish Airlines, GMR and GVK group that is running Delhi, Mumbai airports and presented them a strong case for better and a greater connectivity of Sri Guru Ram Jee International Airport. In a meeting with Chief Planning Office (CPO) for network planning, Michael Swiatek of Indigo airline, we thanked him and his team for bringing good connectivity to Amritsar airport by starting flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Guwahati and Dubai. We also discussed about demand for west bound connectivity from Amritsar to UK, Europe, Canada & USA, said Kamra.
Indigo has recently declared code-sharing partnership with Turkish Airlines which is the only airline in the World that connects to maximum destinations. We requested them that If Indigo is able to start a direct flight from Amritsar to Istanbul, passengers from Amritsar shall be seamlessly able to check-in, clear immigration from Amritsar and conveniently connect via Istanbul to all major airports like London, Toronto, New York, Milan, Frankfurt, etc via short transit time at Istanbul on Turkish airline. Since Turkish airlines does not have permission to fly to Amritsar and Govt of India is not allowing them to operate even after Turkish airline openly came out in media to start Amritsar flights, this partnership of Indigo with Turkish seems to the best way out for global International connectivity.
Amritsar MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla also spoke to Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Civil Aviation and Secretary Civil Aviation RN Choubey requesting re-routing of Delhi-London flight via Amritsar and add as a point of call in bilateral air service agreements under consideration with Oman, China, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc. He reiterated importance of Amritsar airport as a economic driver for Punjab region and how during 550th year of Guru Nanak Dev jis birth celebrations Amritsar will be the most visited destinations by NRIs and Tourists
Kamra said that delegation also met with Akihide Yoguchi, Vice President Marketing & Strategy Research Japan Airlines. discussing connectivity opportunities of Amritsar Airport to West Coast of North America (Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Seattle) and with Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Georgia, New Orleans and New York.
Delegation also requested Sunil Bhaskaran, CEO AirAsia India and Sanjay, Chief Commercial officer of AirAsia India to resume its recently withdrawn domestic flights from Amritsar. Both of them responded positively that Amritsar is an important destination for AirAsia India and due to temporary capacity problem they had to withdraw some flights and will be back soon with greater connectivity options from Amritsar.
