Kingfisher to fly from Delhi to Jaipur via Agra

Three years after the last scheduled flight landed at Agra civil airport, Kingfisher Airlines is set to use Agra as the middle-hop for its Delhi-Jaipur flights, with flights landing twice at Agra airport during the day.

Though Kingfisher had announced the inclusion of Agra in its sector-chart a year back, connecting it to Goa, the flights could not be scheduled due to operational reasons.

This time, the airline sources confirmed, the flights would start operating from December 15 and the airline staff has been posted at Agra airport to handle the flights.

Operating on the Delhi"�Agra"�Jaipur sector, the flight will arrive at Agra airport in the afternoon, making a one-hour hop to Jaipur and back, employing ATR-42 aircraft.

Talking to Business Standard, Prahlad Agarwal, convenor, Agra Foreign Tourist Traders and Exporters Association, said the Agra-Delhi sector in the "Golden Triangle" was not expected to carry much load, as the cities were connected by excellent rail and road networks, but as there were hardly any trains to Jaipur from Agra and a road trip took the best part of six hours, the Agra-Jaipur load of tourists was bound to shift from taxis to Jaipur-bound flight.

But, he said, the air-connectivity of Agra to other stations was severely impaired due to low visibility during the winters and for the past few days, hardly any private aircraft landed at Agra airport due to foggy conditions.

Besides, the aircraft operations at the present civil airport were bound to be affected in the winters as the Air-Traffic Control (ATC) was in the hands of the Indian Air Force, which operated the Instrumental Landing System (ILS) that was necessary for flight operations in low visibility.

Agra was a transport base for the airforce besides being the home for the country's only airborne refueling squadron, so civilian aircrafts were always held at a low preference on their list, which was often an issue of unrest among private operators, he added.

Though the tourism industry of Agra is quite pleased with the possibility of Agra re-joining the country's aviation map, local travel agencies indicated that unless Agra was connected to a long-distance flight, either to Mumbai or Goa as it was about to be a decade back, the aviation sector held little promise for the city's tourism industry.