Mysore no longer connected by air

With Kingfisher Airlines extending its flight cancellations up to March 2012, hopes of the air link being restored to the heritage city remains grounded - at least for the present.

Kingfisher cancelled its services to several destinations, including Mysore on

November 8. This came as a bolt from the blue for this city of Palaces which was re-linked finally with commercial flights, after a couple of decades.

They were hopeful the inbound and outbound Bangalore-Mysore Kingfisher Red services providing direct flights to Chennai would “pave the tarmac” for international flights and the airfield, once of the royalty, would expand to international standards to receive bigger aircraft. Earlier, Mysore had suffered a similar fate. The first effort to air-link Mysore was made over half a century ago when flights began to the operated daily between Bangalore and Mysore.

Dakota airplanes brought passengers from the Bangalore HAL airport, now shut for private air flights, to Mysore’s Mandakalli airstrip and vice versa. There were high hopes that this would give a big boost to tourist flow to Mysore, which continued to retain the old royalty charm. But, hopes were short-lived. Flights were withdrawn as it turned out ‘non-remunerative’. Passengers found road-travel faster. Suggestions were made that instead of linking Mysore-Bangalore with a short flight, the service should extend to link Mysore with other cities of the South like Thiruvananthapuram, to make it payable. However, this did not happen and Mysore was off the air-map.

Hopes were revived when The Hindu began a daily service from Chennai (then Madras) to Mysore via Bangalore to airlift its publications. However, this did not last long.

From then on, Mandakalli airport remained neglected, except for an occasional flight bringing in VIPs to Mysore.

With expanding airline services, the demand to develop the Mysore airport gained momentum. The state government backed it too. Mandakalli finally saw upgrade into a modern airport in September 2009 enabling it to receive smaller craft.

A year later, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and Kingfisher Airlines’ Chairman Vijay Mallya made an inaugural journey to Mysore from Bangalore on an ATR amidst much fanfare. Promises were made that the modernised airport would be expanded to receive bigger aircraft and Mysore would be put on the international air-map. However, all these hopes have crashed, at least for now.